Why study this course?
Taking part in the voluntary sector provides a snapshot of what the voluntary sector is, the main issues and challenges faced by voluntary organisations and the main areas of work and volunteering. Studying this course will help you feel more confident about your own interests and skills and how you might apply them to working or volunteering in the sector.
Julie Charlesworth, the author of this course, will now give you a bit of background into why you might like to study this course.
If you are not already working or volunteering in the sector, you will find it helpful to consider how features of the role match up with your own day-to-day experience and knowledge. The guided activities throughout this course will help you to learn how to reflect upon your own practice. Completion of this course will allow you to demonstrate your understanding of the voluntary sector to current or potential employers.
Throughout this course you will find activities that ask you to write down your thoughts and opinions based on the issues being discussed. There will be a few simple questions that encourage you to focus your thinking. It would be helpful for you to spend some time thinking about what you have learned within each section, and how it relates to your current role or something you aspire to do.
These activities are not there to test you, but designed to help you reflect upon what you have read. These activity spaces are entirely for your own use to help you recognise what you have learned, even if you haven’t yet encountered it within your area of activity. Nobody else will see what you write here. The aim is to help you to become more reflective, by bringing together aspects of both your personal and professional/volunteering experience so you can review and learn from them.
Structure of the course