The Croydon Playcare Company was originally known as Gingerbread, and was set up in 1979 by a group of lone parents who volunteered their time and energy. Our organisation decided to get involved with 'Investing in Volunteers' as we felt Volunteers play a big part within our organisation. As a registered charity we rely on support from staff, parents and volunteers. The 'Investing in Volunteers' Scheme was a way of involving all staff members in the management of volunteers and involving them in understanding how vital it was for our organisation to appeal to volunteers.
The benefits of going through the programme were that we made some important changes to how we induct and work with our volunteers. We completely changed and updated our paperwork including information forms, support forms, questionnaires and task descriptions for our volunteer packs.
I was nominated as a volunteer coordinator for the organisation and part of my role was to liase with our local volunteers bureau and millennium volunteers office to advertise the organisation as widely as possible. Since completing the programme we have had some excellent volunteers who have come through the local volunteers bureau. Our children have benefited from having some very caring and helpful people working with them. Not only have we had people interested in childcare we have had gardeners, admin support and people to escort for our minibuses when we collect children from school in the afternoons. Some volunteers have accompanied us on outings with the children, which they really enjoyed.
We were awarded our Investing in Volunteers Standard in October 2002. The workbook itself was easy to understand and we received ongoing support from staff working on the scheme. At the beginning the process looks daunting but once you start it becomes clear. Most of the work you produce for the award will be used to put together your volunteer packs. The units are very relevant for all kinds of organisations and the workbook questions and tasks are clear and presented in a workable format.
The final assessment of our organisation was a time when we could see all our hard work come together all staff members were involved even members of our management committee, it was a worthwhile effort from every body.
Overall gaining this standard has allowed us to deliver a better service to our volunteers and helped our staff to manage and support them while they are here.
Emma Ouzman, Volunteer Coordinator, Croydon Playcare
