Information Update at Volunteer Centre Lewisham

Volunteer Centre Lewisham
2nd Floor Showroom
H E Olby
307-313 Lewisham High Street
Lewisham
London
SE13 6NW

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Information Update

Attention all Organisations! New Minimum Criteria

In the next few months, Volunteer Centre Lewisham will introduce a ‘minimum criteria’ for groups who wish to advertise their volunteer roles through our network. This is to safeguard both yourselves and the volunteers who may join you. If you do not currently have all of the minimum criteria in place, please don’t worry! You will be able to access a range of support and signposting information from us in the coming months that will help you meet these requirements and so improve your good practice.

The essential criteria for registering volunteer opportunities are:

Insurance

You should have sufficient insurance to cover your potential volunteers’ activities.

Health and Safety

You should follow health & safety regulations in relation to the volunteers’ work with you and make the volunteer aware of health & safety guidelines as part of their induction. In addition, if the activity is volunteering with children or vulnerable adults you need to follow legal guidelines on Criminal Record Bureau checks.

Equal Opportunities

Your organisation should have an equal opportunities policy and you should work in a non discriminatory way with volunteers.

We will also strongly encourage you to have the following procedures and practices in place:

A system where you respond to volunteers’ enquiries within 10 days.
A fair and transparent volunteer recruitment policy.
A named contact person for volunteers.
Written volunteer role descriptions.
Payment of volunteer expenses (travel/lunch etc.).
A regular form of volunteer supervision (formal or informal).
A system of volunteer induction and training.
A volunteer policy with clear guidelines about inductions, training, support and supervision and how you will recognise volunteers’ contribution to your organisation.

If our records show that your organisation does not have all of the essential criteria in place we will contact you. If you’d like to contact us first, please do so! We will be very happy to help.

Please note that if, after a reasonable period of time, your organisation has still not met our essential criteria, we will stop advertising your volunteer roles until these policies and practices are in place. During this time you will still be able to access all of our other services, including good practice workshops, training and our Volunteer Coordinators Forum.