LOCAL volunteers have had their say on a national strategy designed to guide the future of participating in groups, organisations, and services.<\/p>\n
Led by Volunteering Australia, the project is taking place across the country with various workshops to discuss barriers, opportunities and challenges following COVID-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n
National strategy director Sarah Wilson said the aim is to create a vision of what volunteering will look like in 10 years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
She also said research from several universities provided volunteering was \u201cdecimated by COVID, and it\u2019s slowly recovering but not to pre-COVID rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to consider what volunteering might look in the future, especially in the regions where there might be an older population, what it means if they can\u2019t or don\u2019t want to return to volunteering for health reasons,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Manager of the Bendigo Volunteer Resource Centre, Helen Yorston, said numbers had been dropping even before the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
She said many people are calling on more flexibility, a variety of roles and support with technology and inductions.<\/p>\n
\u201cVolunteering programs need to be adaptable and to cater for the needs of volunteers,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got new residents, some being people who\u2019ve retired, or of course newly arrived migrants.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope it is easier for people to participate. We\u2019ve got to keep everyone safe, [but] the processes, the red tape and, making sure we\u2019ve got insurance in place is a real challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Wilson said not only did the COVID-19 pandemic affect numbers of volunteers, but it showed how important volunteers are in social organisations as well as health services.<\/p>\n
\u201cVolunteering is something that\u2019s happening every single day and it always was,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what we saw over the past couple of years is the increase in demand for a lot of services went up and the available pool of volunteers wasn\u2019t the same.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOCAL volunteers have had their say on a national strategy designed to guide the future of participating in groups, organisations, and services. Led by Volunteering Australia, the project is taking place across the country with various workshops to discuss barriers, opportunities and challenges following COVID-19 restrictions. National strategy director Sarah Wilson said the aim is […]<\/p>\n