Celebrating National Volunteers' Week Monday, June 3, 2013 - 10:23

The stories of eleven Community Learning Champions, illustrating the impact volunteering has had on them as well as the difference they have made to the learners they have supported, has been published by NIACE to coincide with National Volunteers’ Week (1 – 7 June).

Voices of Community Learning Champions highlights the ways in which volunteering has enabled Community Learning Champions (CLCs) to develop new skills, supported progression to further learning and employment, fostered stronger social relationships, contributed to improvements in mental health, and built confidence and self-esteem. Their experiences are often described as genuinely life-changing.

The publication celebrates and confirms the increasingly-important, mutually-reinforcing, relationship that exists between adult learning and volunteering across the lifelong learning sector. Volunteering is encouraged through policy and practice and is evident in diverse contexts from CLCs in communities, to Student Ambassadors in HE, and Learning Advocates in the workplace. No fewer than fourteen of this year’s Adult Learners’ Week award winners are also volunteers.

Helen Plant, NIACE Programme Manager and manager of the Community Learning Champions National Support Programme, said:

"The personal testimonies in this publication demonstrate the transformative effect that learning and volunteering can have on the lives of adults. They show how learning through and for volunteering can be a powerful way for adults, including those facing challenging personal circumstances, to build their confidence, develop new skills, and begin to regain control over their lives. They also show what a difference volunteers can make through the support that they give to others in their community to take up learning. As the evidence repeatedly confirms, even adults who are among the most excluded from learning can re-engage with encouragement and support from trusted peers whose experiences they can relate to. This is the principle behind a wide range of successful initiatives like Community Learning Champions, Union Learning Reps, Workplace Learning Advocates and Maths Champions.

"However, it’s important to remember that these approaches don’t succeed by accident. Working with volunteer peer intermediaries is cost effective, but it is not “cost free.” As all the CLCs stories make clear, the biggest impacts can be secured where volunteers are properly trained, supported and developed. The CLC National Support Programme was set up precisely to help learning providers run successful volunteer programmes and learn from proven good practice. NIACE wants to see the role of volunteer peer intermediaries in learning extended, based on sound infrastructure investment and better strategic links and co-ordination between initiatives to improve efficiency and achieve synergies. The development of the new local community learning partnerships provides a real opportunity to embed volunteering within the community learning mainstream."