Volunteering in Aged Care Settings in WA

Good Practice During COVID-19 and Beyond

Volunteering in aged care settings has changed significantly during the time of COVID-19 and initial indications are that some of the changes which have occurred are likely to remain, changing the volunteering landscape for volunteers, managers of volunteers and organisations.

Volunteering WA has released the final report on the Volunteering in Aged Care Settings in Western Australia – Good Practice During COVID-19 and Beyond project, which was funded by a Lotterywest grant to Volunteering WA and supplemented by contributions from Volunteering WA and Murdoch University.

Report: Volunteering in Aged Care Settings in Western Australia Good Practice During COVID-19 and Beyond
Authors:
Dr Megan Paull and Dr Sally Paulin, Murdoch Business School + Centre for Healthy Ageing

Good Practice Guides

A set of Good Practice Guides  for use by managers of volunteers. 

Each of the following guides has a target audience. The Guides are designed to be read by themselves, and each has a key COVID-19 takeaways section which can be printed out separately. For more detail on issues raised in the guides please refer to the body of the report.  The document is designed this way to enable greatest flexibility in use. What this does mean, however, is that there are sections which are repeated, albeit in different forms, so that an extract aimed at a selected audience includes key information.


Guide for Volunteer Managers

Managers of volunteers have many titles and roles across the various aged care settings including Coordinator, Director, Manager. This guide is designed to inform staff who are the person or people with overall responsibility for a volunteer program in an aged care setting. Designed with both novice and experienced volunteer managers in mind, the Volunteer Managers Guide covers all the material covered in the other guides.

Volunteer Managers

Guide for Current And Returning Volunteers

This guide is designed for current volunteers, mainly volunteering in Residential Aged Care directly for the provider.
Some elements of this guide are specific to Community Visitors Scheme volunteers including Residential Aged Care
and in-home volunteering as well as into retirement villages.

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Guide for Potential Volunteers

This guide contains information to be passed on to potential volunteers and emerged from feedback on the draft guides.

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Guide for Onsite Volunteer Supervisors And Coordinators

This guide is designed to be made available to those individuals, often in other roles, who have a responsibility to coordinate
or manage volunteers onsite or in a particular operational area with whom the volunteer manager may not necessarily have day to day contact.

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Guide for Staff Who Work Alongside Volunteers

The information in this guide is designed to be made available to staff who work alongside volunteers, as part of their
training and others who may wish to better understand the volunteer role in their organisations and across the sector.

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Guide for Senior Managers And Boards

This guide is designed to be provided to senior managers and boards, in part due to their role in crisis decision making and communications during COVID-19.

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Guide for Policy Makers and Peaks

This guide is designed to be provided to policy makers and peaks across volunteering and aged care to highlight those issues which emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, including some dissonance in messaging.

Belinda

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by a Lotterywest grant to Volunteering WA, supplemented by contributions from Volunteering WA and Murdoch University. We are grateful for this funding which allowed the project to proceed.

               

Thank you to our Researchers and Authors, Dr Megan Paull and Dr Sally Paulin, Murdoch Business School + Centre for Healthy Ageing for their dedication to this project and advancing the volunteering sector.

We would like to extend our thanks to the many participants who have contributed to this project, some of you in numerous ways. Your generosity in offering your ideas, opinions and experiences in a frank and open manner has allowed us to have an insight into the world of volunteering in aged care settings.

Thanks also to the members of the Reference Group who have assisted us with guidance and feedback; Advocare, Amana Living, Juniper, Mercycare, Melville Cares, and Umbrella. Thanks also to Southcare and the Council on the Ageing (COTA) Western Australia for their support of this project.