Leeds Youth Offending Service

Name of Organisation

Leeds Youth Offending Service

Why did you decide to go for Investing in Volunteers?

Mainly as a mechanism to check where we at in terms of our work with volunteers. This helped us to therefore identify areas where there was room for improvement and act on these.

What benefits have you found from working towards Investing in Volunteers?

It has reassured us that we were doing quite well with the procedures we have in place but also highlighted a few areas where we needed to fill in some gaps. With the guidance offered this was easily done.

How did the assessment work in your organisation?

A group of staff and volunteer representatives met to undertake the self assessment . The draft was then shared with other interested volunteers for further contributions/comment. Tasks that needed completing before the assessment day were then divided up amongst the group. The assessment day itself was quite difficult in terms of getting people in the right place at the right time but other than that was actually not as daunting as we feared.

5 Practical tips you would give another organisation working towards Investing in Volunteers

• Don’t push yourselves – take it at your own pace, there’s no pressure to rush through it
• Don’t stress – it’s a very friendly and supportive process.