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Commentary - March 2008
‘Volunteering? We used to do that’
Having started her career in adult learning 30 years ago as a literacy volunteer, JAN ELDRED asks what is new in the recent revival of policy interest in volunteering
I must be getting too old for this work! I’ve lost count of how many times lately I’ve had to stop myself from saying, ‘We used to do that’, whether it’s outreach work, activity-based experiential learning or ‘learner-centredness’. Now it’s happening with volunteers and volunteering. I started my long career in adult learning, over 30 years ago, as a literacy volunteer. Is there nothing new?
What contribution can volunteers make in the fast-moving and heavily regulated terrain of adult learning? There is a legitimate concern that we should not support volunteers as substitutes for paid professionals. Yet the role volunteers can and do play in adult learning has won recent recognition from both Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham.
The signs of development are clear: Manifesto for Change, the report of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, was launched in January, and the Morgan Inquiry is calling for evidence about volunteering and young people. A new NIACE project, sponsored by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, is currently exploring the roles that volunteers play in relation to adult learning by examining the ESOL context first. The project, called Volunteers Count, will develop and trial a how-to guide to support the volunteer journey.
The work began in November and NIACE is working with seven national voluntary organisations to identify what must be in place not only to attract and train volunteers but also to provide them and their learners with the support needed to lead to success for both partners. Each organisation is also assessing how it can improve its own processes and practices and is creating and implementing an action plan. This is helping us to understand the characteristics and features of effective practice, as well as how organisations can develop to improve the services they offer.
We have identified four key roles which volunteers play to support and sustain adult learning:
 | As sign-posters and champions, helping to indicate the benefits and value, as well as the fun, to be had in adult learning; |
| As learner supporters, helping with such practical things as arranging child care or access to transport or encouraging and supporting motivation to keep on learning; |
| As peer learning supporters, buddies or mentors, who talk about the learning, and work in partnership to problem solve, prompt and explain; and |
| As first-step teachers who offer localised opportunities to engage in structured, regular learning activities before supporting learners to more formally recognised activities. |
The guidance is designed to build upon the work of these organisations, as well as the long experience of voluntary and statutory organisations. We are learning how volunteers can be key ‘movers and shakers’ in communities and how they bring rich and varied experiences, including qualifications and bilingualism, particularly when they have come to the UK from other countries. We recognise the value of volunteers who welcome newcomers to the UK, help them find their way round the systems and support them into learning. We also recognise the important roles played by people from long-established communities who can understand cultural, linguistic and attitudinal barriers to adult learning and work effectively, in partnership, to address them. We are reminded of the mutual benefits volunteers and learners gain: both find that they learn from the experience, which helps them to move on to further learning or into employment. The process offers dignity and respect to both parties. We are discovering what training works best, and what systems need to be in place to not only deliver the training but to attract and engage the volunteers, match them with learning partners and sustain and support their volunteering and learning. We are also examining what these services and benefits cost.
It is such voluntary activity that helps to create caring communities, emphasise our mutual dependences and demonstrate how learning helps to form and sustain relationships crucial to our sense of identity, belonging and security. In the jargon, volunteers and learners find themselves in ‘win-win’ situations.
We anticipate that the guidance will be made widely available to encourage and support the development of volunteers and volunteering across all sectors of lifelong learning. A summary report, case studies and promotional materials will help to encourage other organisations to develop their services and spread the message that ‘volunteers count’. So, in spite of the professionalisation of the lifelong learning workforce, especially those who work in the literacy, language and numeracy curricula areas, there are some vital and key roles for volunteers to play in ensuring that adult learning, and ESOL in particular, reaches those who want and need it. I will resist the temptation to go on about my adult literacy volunteering days – this time it really is different.
Jan Eldred is Associate Director, Widening Participation, NIACE
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