How to make volunteering a positive experience
How to make volunteering fun
Everyone likes to have fun and to do tasks they enjoy.
Some people find motivation and concentration hard when volunteering.
We have found that making volunteering roles fun helps to boost concentration and motivation.
It also makes their volunteering more memorable, increasing their quality of life and the likelihood of retaining them as a volunteer.
All of our volunteers with learning disabilities fed back that they liked having fun when volunteering!
Give your volunteers a challenge
Ensure tasks are challenging but also rewarding.
For example, building bird boxes with someone there to offer support was challenging for a group of conservation volunteers with learning disabilities.
However, they felt a huge sense of achievement once they had finished building them and had put them up.
We had lots of good feedback after this session!
Set the level
Ensure tasks are not too difficult.
For example, if you left a volunteer with a learning disability alone with no support to build a bird box, they may find it too difficult.
They would leave their session feeling frustrated and could be put off attending again.
It is about tailoring tasks to the individual, ensuring they are challenging but not too much so.
Give praise
Telling the individual when they have done something well and thanking them for their time.
Knowing your help is appreciated is always good to hear, it is the same for volunteers.
Consider planning a volunteer party or celebration event with certificates.
Encourage socialising
Put time aside for a tea break.
Making friends and getting some social interaction is important for everyone including those with learning disabilities.
Breaks can also help with concentration.
Ask for feedback
Coproduction can help to make volunteering fun.
Asking the individuals what they would like their volunteering project to be like ensures their ideas are listened to and they are likely to choose something they find fun.
Vary tasks
A wide variety of tasks and trying something new is more fun for everyone.
How to make volunteering meaningful
Individuals who find volunteering meaningful are more easily retained.
It is important you make your volunteering as meaningful as possible but also to support individuals to understand why it is meaningful.
Encourage understanding
Individuals with learning disabilities sometimes need support to fully understand the meaning behind the task they are doing.
When co-creating content for the Volunteering Hub, we reminded our volunteers at the beginning of each session that we were working on a new website about volunteering for adults with learning disabilities.
This helped them to understand the reason why they were doing these tasks.
Reminding them of the purpose of the sessions highlighted the importance of the task and helped them to feel valued and listened to.
When individuals are taking part in conservation volunteering, for example, we explain the reason why we are getting rid of Himalayan balsam, an invasive species of plant.
Otherwise, they may think they are removing plants when they wanted to look after the plants in the park.
This would lead them feeling unhappy and confused.
Improving skills
Focusing on improving skills can be helpful for adults with learning disabilities and it can help to make their volunteering more meaningful.
Ask them what goals they would like to work on, then give them the opportunity to work on that goal and finally reward them as they improve. This could be working as a team.
Teamwork
A volunteer with a learning disability may always work on their own but would like to work as a team and to get better at this.
You could then pair them up with someone and let them know that they worked well together after the session.
You could work on this over a number of sessions, gradually building them up to working together in a larger group.
Awareness
Any volunteering within the community is helping to spread awareness of disabilities as they are represented when volunteering.
Words from our volunteers
Peter
Peter is a volunteer with a learning disability who is helping to create the Volunteering Hub. He also volunteers at Innovate Trust’s Secret Garden in St Fagans.
Peter explained how coproduction leads to more meaningful and inclusive volunteering.
We get to choose how we want to create the garden. It’s important for, not just myself, but other people in the group to have a decision on what they want to put into the garden.
David
David is a volunteer with a learning disability and autism who is helping to create the Volunteering Hub.
He also has a supported employment role at Innovate Trust.
Volunteering is fun when you get to know new people. You can have a bit of banter. When my volunteering is fun I come back and do more. Socialising with volunteers is important, especially so you can get to know them better. At Innovate Trust we do this weekly with the Peer-led volunteers.
