Volunteer Involvement Strategy 2022-2027

Volunteering makes a significant contribution to the global economy. Volunteering helps
build a more cohesive, safer, stronger community, increasing the social network between
local communities and their local neighborhood. Volunteering promotes people to be more
active in supporting others without necessarily expecting any monetary gain for their time
and commitment of being a volunteer.

Volunteers make a huge contribution to the health and wellbeing of the nation, giving their
time, skills and expertise freely each year to support our NHS. They are crucial to the
NHS’s vision for the future of health and social care, as partners with, not substitutes for,
skilled staff (NHS England - Volunteering).

There are over 300 types of roles in the NHS alone, allowing people of all ages and
backgrounds to find challenging and rewarding opportunities which reflect their availability,
ambitions, passions and skill set.

CNTW recognises the importance of including volunteers and values their immense
contribution in complementing the work of our staff in providing the highest possible levels
of care.

In the wake of Covid-19 our NHS is living and functioning in an everchanging world and as
we move forward this gives us undoubtedly the opportunity to consider new and widened
volunteer roles, to be creative and to build our volunteer workforce that supports and
strengthens our staff within our services to deliver the very best of care to our patients and
carers.

The Trust aims to create a positive environment for volunteers who offer their time and
skills to enrich the patient experience and participate in agreed roles across services,
whilst offering rewarding opportunities to volunteers.

The Trust kindly provide additional recognition for volunteers in many ways:

• Celebrating their contribution through social and Trust events (Annual Members Meeting (AMM), Annual CNTW Nursing Conference, National Volunteers’ Week).
• Special achievements by nominations for internal/external award schemes.
• Volunteer long service awards - 5, 10, 15, 20+ years of volunteering.
• Written recognition in volunteer newsletters and CNTW staff bulletin as well as CNTW social media platforms.
• Valuing their ideas and contribution through participation in monitoring and evaluating volunteer involvement policies, procedures and associated documents (Volunteer Involvement Policy, associated handbooks and good practice guidelines).

• Enrich the patient and carer experience by personalising services.
• Widen the range of social activities available to patients.
• Offer additional time without the competing demands of paid staff.
• Promote diversity and inclusiveness.
• Foster good relationships with the local community.
• Support healthcare professionals in their ward/department.

• Gain confidence and self-esteem.
• Feel part of the wider community.
• Give something back.
• Utilise existing skills set.
• Learn and develop new skills.
• Experience volunteering in a hospital environment.
• Gain an insight and employability skills that may help when considering career options.
• Increase health and wellbeing and use spare time purposefully.
• Feel valued and part of a team.
• Provides a sense of purpose and belonging.
• Build confidence.
• Spend quality time away from work, studies or a busy life.

• Additional resource to support, complement, and enhance services.
• Fostering good working relationships with other colleagues for the benefit of our patients and carers.
• Raise awareness of the Trust’s services, aims and objectives and the 5year plan of
  2023-2028 titled With You In Mind.
• Build positive relationships and contribute to provide volunteering opportunities for people within our local communities by meaningful engagement through participating in volunteer involvement, embedding a diverse and inclusive culture across services.
• By providing volunteering opportunities it is anticipated volunteers see CNTW as a
  great place to work, enhancing our future workforce. 
• Expanding the multidisciplinary team approach effectively within teams.
• Engage and utilise the diverse range of skills, experience and knowledge offered by
  volunteers.
• There is also evidence that volunteering can help to improve health and wellbeing.
• Provide opportunities for patients in their recovery journey, upon discharge and beyond.

• I started to volunteer to gain experience and confidence and hopefully achieve. I have managed to obtain all.

• I volunteer in order to support the journey of recovery, that people like myself with mental health issues face.

• Invaluable insight into the world of mental health.

• Sunderland Recovery College is a great opportunity to give back to my community. 

• Thoughts that I may have helped in giving patients some comfort and friendship when they attended the church service.

• Volunteering has taken me on a journey of discovery. One where I found friendship and respect. Everyone is valued, appreciated and their individual needs are met. I am privileged to be a Volunteer.

• As a previous service user I was able to share my own story and be a positive role model demonstrating there is "light at the end of the tunnel".

• I love being around and involved with people, sharing things with people.

• From volunteering I have gained in confidence becoming more aware of the problems people manage every day and enjoy a role that is extremely rewarding. I have met many like minded people and found a new purpose in life. Since I retired it is the best thing that I have done.

• It installed value to my inclination to do my bit for local communities.

• Always a good experience, found friendship, responsibility and role models to guide me through life.

• I really enjoy coming here, it's very good.

• I dearly wish more people would volunteer. It adds so much value to living and life in general.

• To be honest, In giving I am receiving more.

• It exceeded my expectations - staff were so welcoming and friendly and helped me settle into my volunteer role.

• I admired people since my childhood who volunteered for good causes without any hidden agendas and wished to do it in my retirement.

• The Volunteers have been through similar experiences and they give hope to our future.

• They're a role model and someone to look up to ad bring ideas about how to cope.

• They've been through it themselves and come through the other side.

• It is useful to have role models on the ward to inspire patients, to show them that they can have a different positive life - offering hope.

• All the Volunteers have been enthusiastic and offer another dimension to be the care that we as a team can deliver to patients.

• I draw inspiration from Volunteers who have spent time in hospital themselves and wish to come and help others who remain in services, offering hope that someone's journey in our services will come to an end and that they can lead a life outside of hospital.

An image of a football with pictures of various countries flags on it. It is sitting on grass. The text says Don't leave your mental health on the bench.  selfhelp.cntw.nhs.uk

“I just want to say a big thank you.  You have all been amazing and made my time volunteering easy and enjoyable.  You have all gone out of your way to provide training and opportunities which have played a massive role in enabling me to progress in my career.  For that I am so appreciative.

An increase in Voluntary Services staffing to ensure people from our large geographic
area are proportionately recruited into roles, screened, trained and supported safely
and effectively throughout their volunteering journey within CNTW in line with our
Volunteer Involvement Policy.

• Continue, as well as establish new working relationships within the wider community that CNTW serve, through third sector partnership working to support our aim to be a culturally diverse and inclusive service by the sharing of good practice, investing in skill sharing and the pooling of resources.
• Explore opportunities and actively engage in our local communities to support the strategic direction of CNTW and our efforts to support climate change to help shape the future of CNTW by creating a values-based positive and realistic vision for all our futures in improving health for all our communities.
• Foster additional working relationships with our staff colleagues to bring new volunteer  opportunities to our existing portfolio.
• Continue to utilise the skills and expertise of our communication team members (including Patient Information Centre and Marketing Team) to promote volunteering through social media platforms and branding of volunteering merchandise.
• Continue to work in collaboration with our existing volunteers and new recruits in the development, design and promotion of volunteer involvement materials.
• Buy in to an appropriate and reliable volunteer management software programme that is built specifically around volunteer management. The programme will need to provide tools for every stage of the volunteer journey, from recruitment and compliance to communication, engagement and retention. As well as meeting CNTW NHS Foundation Trust’s internal Information Governance policies and procedures.

1. Have an organisational culture that encourages, promotes and supports volunteering and increases volunteer satisfaction.
    
2. Increase the number and diversity of our volunteers by 25% on a yearly basis.
    
3. Work collaboratively and innovatively with our healthcare professionals, provide new and meaningful roles to support staff and enhance our patients' recovery journey and support our carers.
    
4. Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust will be seen as a great place to 'volunteer'.
    
5. Building innovative partnership working with Individual Placement Support Service, internal vocational rehabilitation services, volunteer bureaus and local community third sector organisations that geographically cover the services of the Trust.
    
6. All projects have a dedicated 'volunteer champion' within their staff team.

Explore and engage across the organisation where wards/departments/services are not currently reached.

• Scoping, piloting and developing new volunteering roles i.e. Meet and Greeters, support CNTW’s strategic direction, gardeners/allotment care/discharge support befrienders.
• Promote the benefits to our services of the engagement of volunteers, to all staff, patients and carers to enhance service delivery and our patients/carers experience.
• Celebrate and communicate the successes and achievements made by involving volunteers in the workplace.

How will we achieve this?

• Good, all-round communication will be key to ensure we are all forward thinking in everything we do for the benefit of our patients, carers and staff.
   
• Communicate and showcase success and achievements through many social platforms i.e. Talk 1st, staff bulletin, community meetings, Annual Members Meeting, internal conferences (nursing, allied health professionals) and yearly calendar campaigns.
   
• Have a presence within meetings to represent volunteer involvement i.e. Health and Wellbeing, Individual Placement Support Employment Service, Vocational Rehabilitation Network, Service User and Carer Reference group, Service User and Carer Involvement and Experience Group, Talk 1st cohorts etc.
   
• Attend ward-based community meetings and other appropriate internal groups to promote volunteering to patients, carers and staff.
   
• To consider adding ‘volunteer involvement’ to check lists for health and safety assessments and other necessary assessments that would ensure volunteering is considered across our services and support a wider audit trail.
   
• Periodically monitor and review the progress of volunteer involvement through actively seeking and gaining feedback through many avenues to all stakeholders.

• Improve volunteer numbers from ‘hard to reach’ groups to bring a stronger cultural inclusive and diverse range of volunteers into CNTW, tackling health inequalities and our post-Covid landscape through targeted volunteer recruitment campaigns (internal and external venues).
• Target recruitment of volunteers to match agreed and specific roles across the organisation whilst considering the demography changes afoot.
• Identify specific skill set of volunteers that can be utilised meaningfully in the workplace.
• Review recruitment process and branding to ensure volunteering continues to be appealing and accessible to all.
• Monitor volunteer involvement by introducing an equal opportunities and monitoring form to provide ongoing reporting mechanisms and provide ongoing statistics that can be measured against targets set and as and when required work to address inequalities.

How will we achieve this?

• Facilitate targeted recruitment campaigns internally and externally within our geographic area.
• Recruitment of additional Voluntary Services Co-ordinators to cover each of our four localities - North, North Cumbria, Central and South.
• Work collaboratively with our Individual Placement Support team and staff networks.
• Raise awareness of the Voluntary Services Department’s function within patient welcome pack and discharge information.
• Utilise CNTW staff networks (LGBT+, Cultural Diversity, Armed Forces and Veterans etc.) to highlight volunteering roles on offer for wider distribution to members and the wider community.
• Work in partnership to recruit suitable students from local colleges and universities.
• Utilise our meet and greet volunteers to showcase and highlight benefits of volunteering to passing trade within public areas around Trust premises.
• Work with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead to develop a process that best meets our efforts in tackling under-represented groups into volunteering within CNTW and assists in the regular monitoring to highlight areas of growth and/or need.

The next five years within CNTW will see the population we serve change in demography and it is right that we strive to recruit volunteers to support our Trusts Strategy by including volunteers in this aim going forward. We will also strive and reach out to under-represented people and groups.

• Work creatively with staff to identify new and innovative volunteer roles that will maximise impact for patient experience and support to our colleagues beyond Covid-19 times.
• Heighten awareness across our multi-disciplinary workforce regarding possible opportunities for volunteers to complement the work of paid staff.
• Discuss the aims and vision of CNTW where volunteer engagement can enhance service models and current initiatives by participating in appropriate internal and external meetings.
• Promote the benefits of volunteering and also the engagement of volunteers to teams, particularly around health and well-being and within our patients’ recovery plans and/ or discharge.

How will we achieve this?

• Support our services by having readily available volunteer involvement information resources to disseminate to patients and carers as part of their discharge package.
• Assist and support registered volunteers with volunteer-to-career opportunities for people ready for work either within CNTW and/or external organisations through CV formulation, interview preparation and techniques through the creation and recruitment of a dedicated Voluntary Services Development and Wellbeing Manager.
• Regular positioning of Voluntary Services staff and current volunteers within main hospital sites, periodically to highlight aims of service through promotional materials.
• Continue to highlight and promote new and existing volunteer roles within the Trust through many social media platforms with support from our Communications Team.

• Promote the success of staff teams and volunteers working collaboratively through agreed articles submitted via intranet/Twitter and other social media platforms.
• Volunteers to have a great sense of belonging to their role, the team they are attached to and the wider Trust, through staff utilising their volunteer(s) time and skills effectively to enjoy good mental health.
• Ensure our volunteers have the right skills, knowledge and attitudes to engage and care for our patients.
• Volunteers to contribute to internal and external events/promotions in raising awareness and sharing their experiences of volunteering within CNTW.

How will we achieve this?

• Use internal communication methods with the support from our Communications Team colleagues.
• Attendance (staff and volunteers) at external (third sector organisations, colleges and universities, shopping malls) and in-house events (Annual Members Meeting, nursing conference), to raise the profile of volunteering within the CNTW family.
• Regular news feed promoting new volunteer roles, showcasing volunteer stories and achievements within their area of volunteering and in the sharing of feedback from patients, carers and staff.
• Provide Dementia Friend training sessions for all volunteers, and particularly for volunteers engaging and supporting our older peoples’ services and other services identified to assist and equip volunteers with ease into their roles.

• Identify appropriate third sector organisations to support the promotion of meaningful volunteering roles.
• Continue to work closely with organisations to celebrate volunteering achievements.
• With people, communities and partners, together we will promote the benefits and successes of how volunteering has played a positive impact in the lives of all involved.

How will we achieve this?

• Continue to build on strong working relationships with third sector organisations regarding volunteer involvement across all localities.
• Utilise the wider community to advertise and attract future people force as volunteers within CNTW.
• Together, share in the success of partnership working by highlighting achievements of all those involved via many social platforms in line with CNTW protocols with support from our Communications Team members. 
• Attend external events and third sector organisations to showcase and promote volunteering opportunities within CNTW.
• Approach local community venues to showcase and promote volunteering opportunities to seek out a cultural inclusive and diverse people force within volunteering.

• Create a Volunteer Champion role within staff teams to be carried out within the course of normal duties where involvement of volunteers is active in workplace.
• Promote the Volunteer Champion role throughout team meetings and embed within trust initiatives as appropriate.
• Celebrate and thank staff who engage with volunteers in their workplace by sharing ideas/stories/events through Communications and other social media outlets with permission granted.
• Volunteer Champions will play a crucial role in promoting and supporting their individual teams in the engagement of volunteers through meaningful activity to complement care provided.

How will we achieve this?
 

• Invite Volunteer Champions to internal and external recruitment events, Trust initiatives (Annual Members Meeting, Nursing conference).
• Encourage our Volunteer Champions and wider staff teams to promote and share good practice, news and success of their volunteer(s) within their area of work within staff bulletin and other social media platforms with the support of our Communications team.
• Arrange and facilitate Volunteer Champion support meetings (1:1/group settings) across the localities to offer ongoing support to teams.
• Volunteer Champions to be included in ward/department visible noticeboards.
• Voluntary Services Co-ordinator(s) to be included in ward/department visible noticeboards.
• Voluntary Services team to host support meetings with Volunteer Champions to gather feedback of their champion role and offer continued help, support and encouragement where needed.

37%

• Social Activities, St George’s Park
• Chaplaincy Volunteers, St George’s Park
• Arts Service
• Recovery College, Northgate
• Woodwork Volunteer, Northgate

41%

• Social Activities, Hopewood Park
• Chaplaincy Volunteers, Hopewood Park
• Vocational Rehab, Hopewood Park
• PALS Volunteer, Hopewood Park
• Social Activities, Grange Day Unit, Monkwearmouth Hospital
• Family Support Group Volunteer
• Sunderland Recovery College
• Points of You, Walkergate Park
• Central Therapies, Walkergate Park
• Service User Forum Volunteer, Walkergate Park

21%

• Social Activities, Campus for Ageing and Vitality
• Exercise Therapy, Campus for Ageing and Vitality
• Hospital Shop, St Nicholas Hospital
• Ward Befriending, Alnwood, St Nicholas Hospital
• Community Befriending
• CQC Compliance Observer Volunteer
• Psychology Research
• Arts Service
   

1%

• Social Activities, Hadrian Unit, Carleton Clinic

• Social Activities - Alnmouth, Bluebell, Kinnersley and Woodhorn St George’s Park
• Chaplaincy Volunteers, St George’s Park
• Woodwork Volunteer, Northgate Hospital
• Northumberland Recovery College
• Meet and Greet Volunteers
• Volunteer Drivers
• Schwartz-Round Admin Support Volunteer
• Community Befriending, West Northumberland

• Chaplaincy Volunteers, Hopewood Park
• PALS Volunteer, Hopewood Park
• STARR Team, Walkergate Park
• Sunderland Recovery College (partnership working)
• Social Activities - Springrise, Hopewood Park
• Social Activities - Brooke House, Hopewood Park
• Gateway Recovery College Volunteers
• Gender Dysphoria Service (chaperone out of area)
• Mental Health and Deafness Service Volunteers
• Northumberland Head Injury Service Volunteers
• Tea at 2 - Occupational Therapy, Hopewood Park
• Ward 31A, Eating Disorders, Royal Victoria Infirmary
• Headway Support Group, Walkergate Park

• Social Activities - Castleside Day Hospital, Campus for Ageing and Vitality
• Social Activities - Willow View, St Nicholas Hospital
• Hospital Shop, St Nicholas Hospital (NTW Solutions)
• Church View Allotment Volunteers
• Social Activities - Bede Ward, St Nicholas Hospital
• Social Activities - Elm House, Bensham, Gateshead
• Community Befriending
• Exercise Therapy Volunteers
• Social Activities - Fellside, Lamesley wards
• Social Activities – Akenside, Campus for Ageing and Vitality

• Social Activities - Hadrian Unit, Carleton Clinic
• Social Activities - Oakwood, Carleton Clinic
• OT Carleton Clinic Volunteers (shared garden space)
• Social Activities - Ruskin Unit, Carleton Clinic

• Covid-19/vaccine clinics
• Community Befriending
• Feedback Volunteers
• CQC Mock Inspections Volunteers
• Psychology Volunteers
• Communications (including Patient Information Centre and Marketing Departments) - admin and promotional support (ad hoc basis)
• Thrive roadshows (ad hoc basis)
• CNTW recruitment, promotion and fundraising events - admin and promotional support (ad hoc basis)
• Cultural Diversity Staff Network - admin support (ad hoc basis)
• Dietetics - admin support (ad hoc basis)
• Occupational Therapy Groups, SGP
• Admission and discharge packages