Volunteering England: Improvements to Voluntary Sector

If you reject a person based on references or any other aspect of volunteering I feel you are duty bound to receive a formal response as to the reasons its only proper and right, you would not like it if you ignore people so why do it to others.

Mental Health Issues

There are times I feel it is acceptable to turn away people who are not in the best frame of mind with a formal written explanation inclusive of whether the charity feels this breaches any mental health legislation.

However the charity needs to ask itself if it has made any reasonable adjustments inclusive of a mentor, cooling off period or working with statutory authorities before one rejects a volunteer at that point in time, this is something that should be looked into before turning people away.

It would be interesting to have a survey done by Volunteering England to see whether charities or volunteer centres would turn people away or include them in a volunteer placement on the grounds they are aware of their illness and in what context in the organisation.

There are consequences for being ill and sometimes people may not always work or have a social life during that period as I have found easier therefore if people do not know people it should be discouraged to be so harsh against them in the vetting stages. 

Giving people chances after an illness volunteering could benefit everyone and give hope to those who want to turn their lives around, get to know people and hopefully could be the very thing they are searching for to have positive stepping stones to other things.

Charities are the key to those who have mental health to give life not reduce the quality of life.

Questions

Do you agree that someone with depression should be discriminated and not allowed to volunteer?

Do you agree when someone is off work and ill it is right to say they are not suitable to volunteer indefinite?

Do you agree when someone puts a complaint in to the CVS it is acceptable to ignore the complainant i.e. CEO and Trustees?

Do volunteer centres believe that for me and others it is acceptable to not communicate with your customers, forward applications on to charities and help them because of someone’s circumstances? Poor customer service should result in dismissal?

Should Volunteering England have forums on their website to publish experiences and feedback?

Should The Charity Commission with Volunteering England have a free arbitration service for the public should problems occur with a volunteer centre or charity themselves?

Should volunteer and charities have period that if they are not successful now there would be a date set in 3 months cooling off period to review the application and formally let the candidate know?

The above issues may cause some debate, will need to be looked into further and each point could be elaborated with statistics, personal experiences and I know for certain the way in which certain people have behaved towards me feeling at times very vulnerable there are not enough safeguards in place or support mechanisms to enable people such as me to volunteer my time to benefit the place to which I would belong for a period of time.

Volunteering will significantly improve my outlook and quality of life if people will give me a chance. How long will it take until my next assignment is debatable but for now thank you for reading this piece?