5.4. Summary
The course encourages you to think about and reflect on the
following;
- What you need to know and who
you need to speak to about how COVID-19 and it’s recovery phases
- How the
current situation has affected your group or organisation, you and your
volunteers
- What do I
need to know about the volunteers’ experience?
- How to
balance the benefits of volunteering, to a group, the volunteers, and the
individuals they support, against the risk to those individuals and groups
- That the
group or organisation fully understand their duty of care within its
context
- Whether
volunteers are ready to return and how the changes have affected them
- Whether the
group or organisation is ready for them and has clear structures and
process to safeguard volunteers and promote their wellbeing.
The COVID-19
situation is very fluid, and therefore, this course will be organic, it is not
a complete or finished course, and we will develop its content over the next
few months as the current situation changes. Please remember to adapt this
information into your local context and seek out the relevant government advice
for your locality of operations. We would also hope that this course has
highlighted some issues around Health & Safety for your group or
organisation while involving volunteers. We hope you found the course and the
resources and the Action Plan useful. Some final thoughts:
- Volunteering is a choice freely made;
- Listen to your volunteers;
- Not starting a volunteer programme is also an
action
- Keep volunteers safe
and take a precautionary approach to risk and developing a risk
assessment;
- Keeping everyone safe
and follow public health advice in your locality
- Check the resources
signposted in section 5.3 Your Legal Responsibilities for
guidance and advice