Good Practice in Volunteering - WICOP's Approach to volunteering

The Womens Electronic Village Hall has been providing women with a wide range of computer training courses for nearly a decade. Volunteer workers have played an important part in working alongside tutors, providing students with extra support and individual help on a variety of courses.

The Womens Information & Community Outreach Project (WICOP) is the WEVH newest initiative which aims to:

"Develop a volunteer project which can effectively support individual women and womens voluntary organisations, enabling them to become more efficient and effective through better use of Information and Communications Technologies, resulting in improved services to women in local communities"

The developing and evolving role of volunteers within the organisation will give an opportunity for volunteers to develop their skills further and pass these on to a wide range of individuals and voluntary groups working in and around Greater Manchester.

Recruitement of most of our volunteers comes from women who have already attended computer courses here and have experienced first hand the informal, student-orientated and respectful style of teaching which is integral in our delivery of training. Seeing volunteers being valued and working effectively within the organisation has provided positive role models to other women. This philosophy is central to our way of working and has been a great starting point for developing volunteers work in the community.

Because volunteers come with a range of experience, skills and confidence levels, we have a number of ways in which volunteers can become involved which goes from being very supported in their work to working independently in organisations. Examples of these stages include, (most supported first)

• Working at WEVH within training sessions alongside a tutor
• Working with volunteer co-ordinator in community projects
• Working with other volunteer in community projects
• Working individually with projects, with regular support from the volunteer co-ordinator or information worker

This means that volunteers have a menu of possible volunteering opportunities, dependent on what sort of work would meet their needs or experience. This variety of opportunities means that volunteers can take on new challenges, gain greater confidence and develop their skills. The sorts of work volunteers do includes:

Planning, negotiating and building web sites, helping workers effectively use microsoft office, pc maintenance, using e-mail, using the world wide web, producing information handouts and leaflets, helping in workshops and encouraging greater use of electronic communication.

Many of the volunteers come from varied backgrounds and include: Retired teachers, unemployed web designers, single parents, students and women who work part time or self employed.

Setting up an appropriate placement is essential for both volunteer and project to get the maximum benefit. Volunteers are given an initial interview to assertain their knowledge, skills and experience and identify what sort of volunteering they would like to get involved in.

Volunteer training is essential and we have a wide range of opportunities including, general volunteer training, one day computing courses, working along side the volunteer co-ordinator or information worker and the JEB IT teacher training qualification, an opportunity for volunteers to get a nationally recognised qualification and teach IT up to NVQ Level 2.

Ongoing support and supervision of volunteers is also given on a regular basis and we foster a culture of openess and positive learning, recognising that we are all teachers and learners in different situations. Indeed we do not expect anyone to know everything, but by asking and sharing information and skills, all involved in WICOP are able to learn and in turn pass this on to others.

You can download a copy of our volunteer handbook here (137KB in Word 97 format).

To find out more about Good Practice in Volunteering go the the National Centre for Volunteering.