Every hospice volunteer, specifically those working in direct care, are often in contact with patients and their families for a few hours a week. This, more than likely leads to a long-term commitment requested by hospices to ensure patients are able to bond with the same volunteer throughout time.
It’s safe to say that volunteers play such an important role in hospices; which is exactly why you have to find a hospice volunteer that is the right fit to offer support. So, what are some qualities to look out for?
What Qualities Are Hospices Looking For?
Hospice volunteers have to be able to listen intensively and hold conversations with patients. Many patients will spend time talking about their lives, families, and what regrets or memories they have. As this is a sensitive time for patients and their families, volunteers can help by being a listening ear, giving no judgment.
Volunteers are given an opportunity to learn and develop their understanding – and a patient’s understanding – of finding peace. Being able to control their emotions can be a benefit. Many conversations revolve around death and grief, being in touch with those feelings, and knowing when to be emotional can help build a bond with a patient, helping them (and possibly themselves) with the acceptance of death.
Volunteers who are able to understand the physical and emotional boundaries needed when volunteering in hospice care can be deemed as essential. Having personal limits is not only essential, it helps create the safest care possible to those patients and their families- a limit means that it may make it easier to disconnect from the patient and family, once the patient has passed.
The Quality of Comfort…
Hospices will be looking to those volunteers who have a comfort level for those patients who may need assistance. Many patients experience deteriorating functioning in their final weeks of life. They may start to need help with daily tasks, which is where volunteers come in. Volunteers should be able to feel comfortable in these situations- from dressing to feeding. Training is most likely to be provided by hospices, so volunteers can assist patients effectively.
For hospice volunteers, being kind is a necessary quality to have. Having compassion can give immense comfort to those coming to the end of their life, along with comforting any family members too. It is important for volunteers to have respect for life in all ways, including religion, views, and cultures.
A volunteer’s company can be the best quality for them to have. With a myriad of commitments, a patient’s loved ones may not be able to be around all the time. This is why it’s crucial for volunteers to be around, providing comfort and keeping patients company throughout the day.
Volunteers are most likely going to be matched with a patient that they then frequently visit; during these visits they can talk, read, apply holistic therapies, write letters, or even document their life. It’s a time to connect with a patient and comfort them at this point in life.
Volunteers are one of, if not, the most important piece of hospice care…
It’s easy to sit here and type out the qualities found in hospice volunteers up and down the country, but the work they do to provide comfort and support to patients and their families is something to be proud of. They’re one of, if not, the most important pieces in hospice care.
If you’re looking for a volunteer management system, why not take a look at us? You can start a FREE trial over on our website.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Most Hospices rely on volunteers to support the work they complete- they help ease the challenges faced. Volunteers have been important since the modern hospice movement, founded by Dame Cicely Saunders in the 1960s…
In the next 10-15 years, hospice’s will face challenges and high demand from the UK’s ageing population. People are now living for a longer time with complex and chronic health conditions. A Help the Hospice survey found that 7 out of 10 people think the pressure on hospice care will ‘rocket’ in the coming years.
So how can Hospices make sure their volunteer management systems keeps up with this demand, and ensures volunteers feel connected to the hospice they help?
Exploring what works and the current challenges.
The role of volunteer managers can be demanding, most are responsible for a long list of responsibilities including: recruitment, training and ensuring volunteer recognition…Volunteer managers play a significant role in making sure volunteers have the right resources to volunteer adequately.
A volunteer management system can help volunteer managers collect contact information, preferences, volunteer schedules and stay in touch with volunteers to ensure volunteers know exactly where to go to find the support they need. Luckily, we know a good volunteer management system you can look into- us! You can start a FREE trial with us on our website, and start your volunteer management journey today…
After that little plug, it’s back to business. The covid-19 pandemic has raised some concerns around volunteering in the future, and while all hospices are different, there are some concerns felt across the UK. These include:
Management structures and cultures across hospices for volunteering.
The importance of volunteers towards hospices.
In a post covid world- how will volunteering look?
In other words, volunteers not only help inside hospices, but in the community too. If your volunteer management system doesn’t work effectively, these coils pose a risk for the reputation of your hospice if your volunteers aren’t comfortable.
Managing your volunteers.
Volunteer Managers have found managing volunteers as time consuming and ‘not easy.’ To relieve this pressure, hospices have undergone strategic changes which have been pivotal to understanding more about hospice volunteers and how they can best support staff.
Similarly, there is some concern that managing volunteers and managing paid staff isn’t always distinct. Specifically the distinction between HR and Volunteer service management is becoming blurred between their roles and skills.
Having a separate volunteer management system for volunteers ensures that your volunteers would know exactly what the roles and responsibilities will have within a hospice. This service can help manage a professional and consistent volunteer programme that works for everyone.
In order to achieve full potential, systems should also listen and engage with volunteers. A two-way communication system is beneficial for hospices looking for retention and improving the overall volunteer experience. With TeamKinetic, we have numerous ways you can communicate with your volunteers. Notifications, email, SMS text- the list goes on. Why so many options? Preferences. Not all volunteers want to be emailed- some may want to receive an SMS text. Above all- communication is key.
The executive team and inclusivity.
A hospice’s executive team is important in driving a positive and inclusive culture across the whole hospice. Inclusivity within hospices is about treating staff and volunteers equally, but also ensuring access to training and support for all. Everyone should be treated with respect and treated fairly.
For some there is still a feeling of ‘them’ and ‘us’ culture within hospices. This is divisive and can stop the potential of a volunteer programme being successful. This, along with changing volunteer roles due to the pandemic, has meant that the full nature of volunteering is changing.
However, there is a fear that hospice’s could get left behind and may not be able to compete for volunteers with our programmes. A volunteer management system can help with this. At TeamKinetic, we help recruit, retain and realise your volunteers and the potential they have. If you’d like to have a chat about what we offer, email us at katie@teamkinetic.co.uk or call us on 0161 914 5757.
For many, covid-19 has put these issues in the forefront of conversations within hospices, and how they are going to run their volunteer programmes in the future.
The challenges faced through covid-19.
It’s known that hospices attract a demographic of elderly volunteers, which has also been the demographic most affected by the pandemic. This means that hospices have fallen short of active volunteers, as those in older demographic groups need to take extra care (even if they’ve had the vaccine, with new variants, the future is still rather uncertain).
Along with this, volunteer roles have also adapted and changed given the situation we’ve found ourselves in. It’s become the perfect opportunity for hospices to look at their volunteer programmes and assess how appealing it is for other demographics. Can certain roles attract younger volunteers? This may mean looking at changing roles to add more flexibility or expanding wider networks.
Looking into the future, managing volunteers is crucial for the sustainability of hospices. If you’d like to know more about how hospices can become more sustainable, you can read our blogs on our website: ‘How Can Hospices Become More Sustainable, Part One and Part Two’.
Looking for a volunteer management system?
If you’d like to look into developing a volunteer management system, why not start a FREE trial with us! Head over to our website and within minutes, you can be exploring your new volunteer management system.
Can hospices become sustainable? It’s time for part two. In last week’s post we delved into the first 5 principles, today is the final four! Hopefully this has helped you to start thinking about how your hospice can become more sustainable…
Become cost effective to be sustainable…
A threat of a severe recession and climbing competition for charitable giving could leave a lasting decrease in charitable revenue. Maintaining a grip on Hospice finances and implementing sustainable practices means there’s a chance to maximise costeffectiveness. However, it isn’t easy to develop cost effective routes. When handed a sustainable alternative, there is rarely any evidence that proves it true- but alternative practices have to start somewhere.
Stakeholders spoken to by Hospice UK want all Hospices to be aware of their own visibility. This way, they’re able to identify services which need to be redesigned for sustainability. Being more transparent about financial positions with commissioners has led to balanced financial risk in numerous areas.
Key benefits and outcomes of greater control of costs:
“The operational model for each service delivers agreed outcomes and benefits.”
“Proactive and reactive: anticipate critical issues and plan for sustainability in advance.”
“Quantify and help provide an evidence base to support decisions that require major trade-offs.”
“Increased certainty in responding to current and future demand by taking a rigorous, outcome based approach.”
Maximise your commercial revenue!
There has been a decrease in income for many Hospices, especially retail income over the past 2 years. It means that those Hospices reliant on a particular area of funding are susceptible to downturns and falling trends. So, Hospices are key in finding the effectiveness in their current revenue. The key is maximising commercial revenue.
Hospice UK has found recurring themes that Hospices could explore… Start re-thinking commercial spaces – are you getting the best out of the spaces you occupy? New revenue models, including collaborations, which has always been a strong starter that benefits multiple hospices at once. And teaming up with local third sector parties or partners.
Are you deploying the correct people around your patients?
Start reviewing the shape of your workforce. Deploy the correct people around your patients. Hospices need to start looking into how their workforce is going to look in the future due to the changes occurring across the end of life and palliative care sector. We suggest Workforce Shaping.
Workforce Shaping can determine your team’s structure in the future and what will be required to introduce new ways of working. Hospices should be (re)considering:
“Consider new staffing models to better deliver care.”
“Embrace new roles and ways of working.”
Shape careers of the future, sustainably…
To attract people towards a career in end of life and palliative care, a development needs to be made in order to make careers and jobs more competitive. While most stakeholders believe it wouldn’t be sustainable to match NHS pay, they do believe that improving career pathways is a clear step in the right direction. Why not start by finding out why people want to join, stay and perform for your Hospice.
Understand and map out the journeys colleagues can take to move up within the Hospice, within their own career. Once you have this down, can you start to implement it? If you’re struggling on potential pathways, what about?
Managerial: Allow them to move up the ladder into managerial roles with more responsibility.
Expert: Build and refine their roles based on their knowledge, skills and abilities while keeping them in the speciality they want.
Mobility: For those who want to increase their knowledge, allow them to cross functions within Hospices or the NHS – they can increase their skills and abilities too!
Ways to make palliative care a place to grow a career:
Leadership and Culture: Culture is critical. The challenge for Hospice leaders is to connect the workforce to the ‘core purpose’- to help them see how their job everyday impacts the lives of everyone within their communities.
Vision and Values: A key factor that attracts people to a career in palliative and end-of-life care is the vision and mission to provide high quality, person-centred care.
Rotations and Preceptorships: There is a lot of interest across the sector for developing greater opportunities from clinical staff to undertake ‘rations’ across different providers and specialities.
Devolved Decision Making: Stakeholders noted that covid-19 has helped to break down previous hierarchical structures and devolve decision making to team members closest to the patient.
Diversity and Inclusion: Hospice leaders we spoke with talked about a desire to create a more inclusive culture where all employees thrive. Many noted that there was still more to be done in order to increase the representation of different diversity groups within the sector.
And there you have it!
And that’s that! Over the past 2 weeks, we hope we’ve been able to give insight into how Hospices can become more sustainable and rounded up The Discovery Phase of Future Vision Programme run by Hospice UK for you too.
If you’re looking for a volunteer management software that can help you:
Recruit more volunteers than ever before.
Fully customise your site and volunteer registration.
Communicate with your volunteers easily, all in one place.
Motivate and reward your volunteers with our achievement badges or create your own!
Head over to our website and set yourself up a FREE trial!
Demand for palliative and end of life care is increasing. As a result, Hospices are under greater pressure to find ways to do more with less. The Discovery Phase of the Future Vision Programme, by Hospice UK, starts a conversation around developing a more sustainable future. The charity has outlined nine principles of sustainability and today, we’ll be exploring the first 5!
So, how can hospices become more sustainable?
Integrated Care Systems for sustainability
Integrated Care Systems may have a big role to play in the coming years. Helping to ensure the public and voluntary sector act together in the best interests of patients, service users and families.
While many are in support of partnerships, there are also concerns for Hospice independence. It’s important for Hospices to develop greater integration, in addition to keeping a Hospice’s unique identity, values and high quality care. In Hospice UK’s survey, 99% of respondents thought there should be either full or partial integration with the wider Integrated Care System.
If you’re looking for ways to explore integration, why not try…
Starting at the clinical service level. What services are you going to provide and by whom? Where are these services going to take place?
Build relationships with other Hospices- it’s key to greater integration, while it takes time, you’ll reap the benefits.
Start aligning your data and reports. In order to seamless integration (further down the line) one patient record shared between all providers of a system is critical.
Start collaborating…
Through integration, it also presents the opportunity to collaborate. Covid-19 has inevitably intensified the pressure on constrained resources, and yet despite this, there’s a drive for positive change present.
Why not look towards collaborating with neighbouring Hospices on service deliveries? Similarly, look towards exploring back office joint posts and funding? Each Hospice is different, so we know that not everything suggested will work best for you, but it’s best to explore your options.
Collaboration means you can reach out and work with a wider range of partners in the sector- you aren’t limited.
Time to get technological
As a volunteer management system, we’re all for talking technology– and it’s crucial for you to define your digital strategy. With the increasing demand for care, the opportunities to look digitally as an enabler to change is exciting.
To succeed, as Hospice UK say, is to look from a patient-centric perspective- make sure that the leadership and governance of your digital systems is in place for fostering future innovation.
Speaking to stakeholders Hospice UK picked on multiple themes that need to be addressed for greater digital enablement:
Improve patient experience and engagement. Allowing your patients to have more choice and control over their care, and how they’d like to receive it.
Help provide integrated care- it will be easier to connect individuals to the right parts of the health system. You can strengthen the partnerships across sectors.
Help decreasing the demand for palliative and end of life services driven by the UK’s aging population, a growing population, and an increasing prevalence of chronic conditions and diseases (just to name a few).
Technology can also help with making systems more efficient- there’ll be less time looking for information or duplicating patients.
Influencers for sustainability
Alongside rising demand, hospices may also be providing services to just a minority of people who need it. So, Hospices need to start reaching greater numbers of people with the limited resources they have. Stakeholders have expressed that the focus has to shift from efficient delivery of direct services to patients towards earlier system interventions and advanced care planning- to do this? Influence.
Hospices can use their own influence to bring additional resources in to meet the evolving demands:
Influencing the system through closer working relationships with other providers.
There is a value in education, and adding family members/friends to support delivery of care can help avoid crises alongside meeting a patient’s needs.
Covid-19 has sped up education through online learning and training. Hospices can use this to their advantage to promote awareness and help drive referrals to other sectors in the system.
Hospices can use their unique data insight, this complemented with other systems intelligence, gives opportunity to enable a needs-based approach to the allocation of resources in future.
Is the current funding model sustainable?
The Hospice UK’s survey also highlighted that 83% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the current funding model is unsustainable in the long term. Most respondents went on to point towards a renegotiation of the funding offer with relevant commissioners as a high priority to ensure stable sustainability in the future.
An example of this would be End of Life Together in Nottinghamshire. The collaboration between a number of local Hospices’, Trusts and Primary care providers formed a partnership to secure funding and create an integrated care model. There key services included:
One point of referral providing a triage, assessment and coordination of a person’s needs.
‘Hospice at Home’ services with community hospice beds.
Access to bereavement and carer support services.
And more!
To conclude…
After all that, we’re coming back with a part 2! This week we’ve looked at the first 5 principles for sustainability through the Discovery Phase of the Future Vision Programme. Hopefully, you’ll be gathering some ideas on how you can develop the sustainability of your Hospice, we’ll be back next week for the final 4 principles- we’ll see you there!
Above all, if you’re interested in developing your volunteer management processes, why not start a trial? Head over to our site and sign up today!
The majority of work we refer to in Willowbrook Hospice’s case study is based on figures and interviews from the year 2020. This data has then influenced the extra research conducted in the hospice sector.
It is also worth noting that these figures are taken from the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and with fewer people volunteering, the activity on the system we’ve recorded has been limited.
Before TeamKinetic
We’ve previously spoke to Willowbrook Hospice’s volunteer manager, Bev, about how they managed volunteers before TeamKinetic and what it was that made Willowbrook decide to look into a volunteer management system. Before TeamKinetic, they were managing volunteers through an access database described by Bev as an “archaic system”- with no way of contacting volunteers. With the access database, they’re was no opportunity for interaction and Bev realised that they needed something that would better manage their volunteers.
They realised they needed something web-based that can be accessed from anywhere. The system previously in use was linked to the NHS SHK system, it couldn’t be accessed at any time or place. Willowbrook decided they needed something shop managers could also use; this when they decided to start looking for a volunteer management system and came across TeamKinetic.
Moving to TeamKinetic and Implementation
Willowbrook Hospice chose TeamKinetic after seeing how local we are, watching a number of videos on our YouTube channel and speaking with our Director of Sales, Chris.
At TeamKinetic, we are constantly changing and adapting to suit our customers needs. This was another factor that “sold” us to Willowbrook – they knew if they ever suggest anything, we will take it on board and look into adapting the system to include this.
Regarding implementation, Bev openly mentioned that they needed “lots of planning”, but Steve, our Implementation Consultant, helped with all their planning needs. Willowbrook has numerous shops and with the way they manage their volunteers, it helped them to have a staged way of implementing the system.
They started with one shop first, and shop by shop they managed to get all their volunteers on board. Bev even mention that COVID-19 helped them in some ways; having shops closed gave them the time to fully roll out the system to the volunteers. Joining TeamKinetic also allowed them to have a “data cleanse” – speaking to volunteers who didn’t want to volunteer anymore. With a new system, Willowbrook now know that the volunteers they have registered are the ones who are active and want to volunteer.
COVID-19
COVID-19 affected everyone, including Willowbrook Hospice. While we’ve has multiple lockdowns, the Hospice’s nine shops have been closed during those times . The pandemic also meant that the fundraising team at Willowbrook had to come up with ways to ensure they came up with COVID-19 safe fundraising events. So, having TeamKinetic really helped them with managing their volunteers during COVID-19 safe events. This is what Bev had to say about using TeamKinetic for one of these events:
We had an event that came up where we could sell things in a local Garden Centre. It’s something we had to implement quite quickly because it was over Christmas and the garden centre had told us that if we wanted a stall to sell our Christmas cards and other things then we could. So within half an hour, I had created it on TeamKinetic and had it emailed out to all the volunteers. I would say within the hour, we filled up all the slots for two weeks worth of people volunteering for it. I think that raised over £2,000; without TeamKinetic that would never have happened.
Bev Neilson, volunteer manager at willowbrook hospice
As well as events, from a communication point they were able to stay in contact with volunteers throughout every stage of the pandemic; something that was very important to them. Before TeamKinetic, staying in touch with volunteers was “virtually impossible” and would have involved bulk emails which never worked because the NHS system was too slow for them. Now, they can email and text volunteers from one system with a click of a button.
In addition to this, having the TeamKinetic system available to them during the pandemic allowed them to set up a ‘befriending system’ between the volunteers. From this, they have been able to keep volunteers in touch with each other, solely from the private notes function on the TeamKinetic system.
Willowbrook’s Volunteering by Index of Mulitple Deprivation Rank (IMDR) For All Volunteers Registered Since 2020
This graph shows the number of Willowbrook Hospice volunteers by decile. That is the number of volunteers with a home postcode that is ranked using IMDR.
1 = bottom-ranked postcode area in bottom 10% ranked area of England
10 = top-ranked postcode area in the top 10% ranked area of England
These figures are interesting to see as volunteering is typically viewed as a traditionally middle-class activity. A report by NCVO supports this, as their statistics show 48 per cent of those who volunteered in the last 12 months have a degree compared to 20 per cent who have no qualifications. Some 42 per cent of unemployed people have never volunteered, compared to 21 per cent of those who work part-time.
This is of course also impacted by the fact that Greater Manchester has more postcode areas that fall into the bottom 50% according to the IMDR rank. Despite this factor, I believe it is captivating that despite these statistics, Manchester shows that poverty is not a defining factor in their willingness to volunteer.
When looking at this graph, it shows that Willowbrook has been able to recruit and retain volunteers from all different postcode ranks in England. Showing their inclusivity in welcoming all volunteers into their volunteering programme.
Age
As evidence shows, volunteering is often found to be a pursuit of older individuals. This typically comes from them having more spare time to volunteer than others. Although Willowbrook’s figures around age profiles accurately represents this statement, their figures also show the rising ability to recruit younger volunteers. This comes from the use of TeamKinetic as their volunteer management system. We are able reduce barriers into volunteering, especially for younger volunteers who are digitally engaged through TeamKinetic. We also allow for a quicker and easier recruitment process, something that is favoured in young people volunteering.
Gender
Stereotypically, data from the voluntary sector normally suggests a divide of 60% female volunteers and 40% male volunteers. Linking to this, evidence and research online also suggests a gender split in hospice volunteering with far more female volunteers over male volunteers is common.
Therefore, these figures from Willowbrook are not surprising with over 3/4 of volunteers being female. Despite this, Willowbrook Hospice does demonstrate inclusivity in volunteers with a range of female, male, transgender, and non-binary volunteers getting involved in hospice volunteering. This shows the TeamKinetic system is successful in ensuring anybody can register to be a volunteer as however they identify, allowing further inclusivity in the voluntary sector.
Opportunity Data
Volunteers recorded 16,007 hours of volunteering in the system from 2020. These hours took place over 49 opportunities.
The top 8 most popular opportunities regarding the number of hours undertaken by volunteers are:
1
Retail
2
Admin
3
Fundraising Events
4
Teaching Roles
5
Reception
6
Gardening
7
Catering
8
Driver
As you can see above, the top 8 most popular opportunities is a very diverse range. This shows that since Willowbrook has been using TeamKinetic they have been able to recuit volunteers onto a wide variety of volunteering opportunities. Since Willowbrook Hospice rasies a lot of their funds from their charity shops, it is not a shock to see retail at the most popoular choice. Alongside this, one off fundrasing events are always popular amongst the volunteering community.
Support
To conclude, when on our Enterprise Plan you get telephone support from 9:00 am-5:30 pm, online chat support, support tickets you can raise in the system, YouTube ‘How To’ videos, and Facebook groups and livestreams. From this, we asked Bev from Willowbrook Hospice, who is on the Enterprise Plan, how she found the support she has received from TeamKinetic. Here’s what she had to say:
So from the beginning, and I will say, the support has been absolutely fantastic. If I ever send an email or put a support ticket because I need something, the efficiency is fantastic and I think that it’s that personal touch we get from TeamKinetic. I think if we’d have gone to one of the bigger companies, we wouldn’t have got that.
With TeamKinetic, you never feel like any questions stupid, because I have asked some really silly questions in the past, but actually they’ve come back and easily explained everything to me.
I also think the help videos have been really good. We’ve sent those through to shop managers for them to watch. And I think that’s helped them train them, so I would definitely say support has been absolutely fantastic and I can’t fault that at all.
BEV NEILSON, VOLUNTEER MANAGER AT WILLOWBROOK HOSPICE
Find Out More…
TeamKinetic helps to build better volunteer communities by providing great tools for volunteer managers that save time, increase impact and improve insight. Our goal is to make volunteering easy for everyone no matter what. But don’t take our word for it, why not check out our customer reviews.
For more information on how we can assist with your volunteer management and getting the best out of all your volunteers visit our website or contact us on – 0161 914 5757
After years of Chris saying he wants to do a podcast, we’ve finally taken the plunge… Introducing our new podcast: TeamTalk with TeamKinetic.
TeamTalk is a podcast that takes a deeper dive into the world of volunteer management, hosted by Director of TeamKinetic, Chris Martin.
Join Chris as he speaks to people across the third sector to get their thoughts on all things volunteering and volunteer management!
Our first episode is live now! Chris chats to Nicola Ward and Ian Turnbull from Willowbrook Hospice. Chris, Ian, and Nicola talk all things Willowbrook, criminal checks, and how the TeamKinetic system has streamlined their work.
Willowbrook Hospice is a specialist palliative care unit based in Prescot providing quality care and support for our patients, their families and the community. They’ve been TeamKinetic users for a few years now and provide great insight into the current challenges hospices face.
Make sure to follow the podcast to make sure you don’t miss an episode!
The pressure and demand on hospices is only increasing. With an aging population, it’s important to note, this demand will continue to increase in the next few years. So, how important will volunteers be in the future? We’re aware of the immense impact volunteers make today- they are the backbone for many hospice services.
In 10 years time, could the role of volunteers look?
Building on best practice…
Hospices will need to adapt to the growing demand for care so can we strengthen hospices best practices to help ease increasing pressures. In the context of volunteers, a large volunteer workforce could be needed. To do so, there should be plans to encourage growing recruitment.
It would be beneficial to have a volunteer management system in these times to help you recruit, retain and realise the potential of your volunteers (and yes, we mean us!) You can start a FREE trial with us, here at TeamKinetic, through our website – or book in a demo with us today!
After all that plugging, why not work towards developing a package for volunteer training. The quality of training is key for volunteers to deliver the best care to patients and their families. While training costs money, it means volunteers become an integrated part of hospices and their team. These packages should be general and available to all, but they should also have the chance to be adopted and changed at a local level…
The perception of volunteers also looks to have improved. They are too essential to be left out of any hospice strategy for extending the impact a hospice can make to those who need its services. If you’re looking for new volunteer recruits, why not get your current volunteers to help? They may have reaches in the community that the hospice doesn’t.
As volunteers become more significant in the supporting of hospices, we could also see:
Clear boundaries for those volunteers working in patient-facing roles.
Extend the supervision of volunteers in patient-facing working roles too.
There should be common applications for approaches that sustain volunteer practice safely.
Promoting excellence in the future
There is a belief that investing volunteers and voluntary management can push more volunteers to contribute more, and we have to agree. We find volunteer management systems (whether it’s our own or others) helps build up communication, and a relationship between organisation and volunteer. In turn, this encourages the volunteer to volunteer more.
In the future, hospice models could look towards changing models and programmes that, while might be working now, could become unsustainable with increasing pressure. Therefore, more innovation is needed. Hospice UK believes this can start in three core areas…
Enabling volunteers to play a full role in the work of the clinical team- working in partnership with clinical colleagues.
Having volunteers contribute to the services and strategy for hospices. They play an important role and should be recognised as the vital connection between hospice and community.
Take new approaches to sustaining and nurturing volunteer contribution through volunteer stewardship…
Exploring new approaches for the future
It’s encouraged that hospices look to experiment with volunteer roles. Like a trial and error process, hospices can learn, evaluate and share their findings to pinpoint the useful roles volunteers can play. There are a number of new approaches which could be taken…
Encouraging new organisation forms of hospice-owned but volunteer-led volunteer services at the end-of-life. Volunteers may be able to organise ways that support their contributions across end-of-life providers. They may be able to bring knowledge and continuity to systems of care.
Volunteers can take on significant roles for helping people, and their carers and families. This can relieve pressure on other providers, who may have other responsibilities to attend to; you can’t have one person in two places at once.
There is a call for extensive research in hospices, in particular hospice volunteering. It can build a base around the effectiveness and economic impact of volunteer-led, volunteer delivered and volunteer enable innovation.
In conclusion…
It’s known to us now just how important volunteers are for Hospices. There is no doubt that this importance is only going to increase as pressure on hospices increases. Volunteers will continue to be the backbone of hospice services, and more should be done to support volunteering in these circumstances.
If you’re looking for a volunteer management system, why not sign up for a FREE trial with us! Head over to our website, and set your site up now…
Palliative care and hospice volunteers support those with life-limiting diseases and their families. Their purpose, to improve quality of life and build deeper relationships with patients, gives valuable insight to hospices and their overall care.
Being able to understand the role that volunteers play within hospices helps improve their effectiveness and will better aid those who are thinking of volunteering. Recent evidence suggests that in order to make an impact on the development of volunteering, stronger resources and commitment from those in high positions is required.
More care and support is needed now more than ever – volunteering can play a key role in adapting to the changing needs.
Do Hospice Volunteers Need Training?
Before anyone becomes a hospice volunteer, it’s likely that training will need to be completed. Volunteer training helps prepare them for any services they may perform and understand how they will be assisting patients and their families.
It’s likely that a hospice training program will include:
Understanding the hospice’s philosophy of care.
Understanding the services delivered by the organisation.
How to properly communicate with patients, caregivers and families.
Understanding patient privacy regarding their health information.
Through this training, hospices have recorded common traits that make effective volunteers:
A sense of understanding and compassion towards those on their end-of-life journey.
A respect for all customers’ cultures and religious views.
The ability to listen when needed and be comfortable in silence.
Awareness of personal limitations.
The Types of Volunteering for Hospice Volunteers…
Hospice volunteers provide an immense amount of hours through two main categories: Direct and Indirect Care volunteering…
Direct Care Volunteering is defined by those volunteers who work directly with patients, caregivers and families. They provide comfort and support in a number of ways:
Indirect Care Volunteering, on the other hand, is for volunteers who would like to work behind the scenes. They help the hospice with any administrative tasks. For instance, preparing mailing and/or newsletters to the community. They’ll also be looking to input any general data and other clerical duties needed to be completed. Indirect Care involves making sure the hospice is known within the community and day-to-day tasks are completed for everything to run smoothly.
The Challenges for Hospices
There are concerns about the accessibility of those who can benefit from hospices services which have become a challenge. Volunteers have been a significant part of responding to this and, as a result, can be a significant advantage for hospices.
Volunteers extend the scale of availability to hospices in order to deliver a wide range of services. Importantly, they offer a prolonged connection of care to those with life-shortening illnesses in ways beyond clinical. Volunteers can help extend the reach a hospice can make in the community through stronger social activities.
A diverse range of volunteers can broaden the range of skills and benefits available to you. Hospices can reach out to the same broad community mirrored within the hospice. It’s extremely important to acknowledge the work and benefits volunteers bring, while starting to think about how volunteers can work effectively to push back against rising challenges.
How Can We Help?
With a broad range of volunteers, you might be wondering how you’re going to connect and reward them for their work… Here’s where we come in. A volunteer management system, like TeamKinetic, can help you:
Recruit more volunteers than ever before.
Fully customise your site and volunteer registration.
Communicate with your volunteers easily, all in one place.
Motive and reward your volunteers with our achievement badges or create your own!
With t-minus 3 days until Christmas Day, we wanted to look back at our 2021 with a round up! It’s been another tough year for everyone, but we’ve managed to find some light in moments this year. From award shows to blossoming partnerships, 2021 has been a year of developments for TeamKinetic.
Let’s have a look at our year in numbers.
January – March
The year started very much as this one is finishing, much to everyone’s frustration.
Volunteering was still very much on the agenda as we saw vaccination programs in full swing across the country. We were really proud to support a whole range of organisations mobilising an amazing army of volunteers.
People talk about the Anti-Vax brigade but we can tell you first-hand the Pro-Vax crowd are amazing and were out in force at the start of the year, and we take our hats off to each and every one of them!
March brought some wonderful news when we were honoured to be awarded ‘The Partner Excellence’ and the ‘COVID-19 Response Recognition’ awards for our work with Halton and St Helens Voluntary Community Action at the iNetwork awards. It was a huge achievement for TeamKinetic and our partners and a milestone we won’t be forgetting – especially for the recognition of our efforts throughout COVID.
The key achievements from our work with Halton and St Helens saw 1,744 volunteers registered and together they offered 8,688 volunteering hours. Our volunteer support economic value offered £80,796 during the first six months of the programme. For those feeling lonely or isolated, we were able to support 16,161 telephone calls to make those feel a little less lonely during repeated lockdowns and restrictions. Overall, we were able to support 32,993 in such a short amount of time and we can’t be more proud of the project.
We can’t thank Halton and St Helens VCA and St Helens Council enough; along with every single amazing volunteer for your commitment and drive, you make it all worthwhile. If you haven’t seen their short video on how important volunteers were during COVID, spend a couple of minutes and check it out.
May and June
Moving onto May, we held our first online conference, focusing on COVID-19, and what happens next. We’d like to say thank you to all our speakers and to those 140 people who attended. With talks from the likes of Gethyn Williams, Dr Jurgen Grotz, Kathryn Palmer-Skillings and our own Chris Martin, the conference was a success!
We do have a quick wrap-up video that you can check out here.
In June we said some hellos! We welcomed Alex back into the fold. Having already completed her placement year at TeamKinetic, we welcomed back a familiar face. You can read her (re)introduction to TeamKinetic life, here.
Coming back to TeamKinetic has been great! I’m grateful to the team for offering me this position straight out of university and I’m looking forward to what we can achieve next.
Alex
We also welcomed a fresh face to the team: Katie. Along with Alex, Katie also wrote an introductory blog post which you can read here.
It’s been a whirlwind of a time since I joined in June and I can’t wait to see what comes next in the next six months.
Katie
With new welcomes, we said some goodbyes at the start of July. We said goodbye to Chloe and Sammy, who were our 2020/21 placement students. They took charge of the TeamKinetic conference and supplied you with dog pictures on our Twitter. Alex and Katie are more cat people, and so our pet content has changed significantly over the past couple of months (much to Chloe and Sammy’s dismay).
Both Chloe and Sammy are well underway with their final year at university. We’re wishing them the best of luck seeing out the rest of their degree.
July and August
July saw us return to the office full-time as we thought the world was getting back to normal. It also saw the return of the legendary TeamKinetic staff night out, I must apologise to Chloe, Sammy, Katie and Alex as the night was so messy this appears to be the only surviving picture of these 3 ugly mugs!
August saw the launch of TeamKinetic 2.0 the latest all-singing and dancing version of TeamKinetic. Unlike previous updates, this one was a monster with more new features and controls than anything we had done before. Not only that we had updated and replaced all the old legacy code with a new and improved code base. Steve and Rolf worked day and night to get it ready and after it launched to find and fix those pesky bugs.
This new code base has set us up to be able to continue to improve the service quicker and hopefully will ensure you guys have the very best technology available for the next few years.
September
In September, we were so proud to announce our partnership with the Association of Volunteer Managers. Founder, Chris Martin, detailed our hopes for the next 12 months, some of which we’ve started on already…
Over the next 12 months, we will be working with the team at AVM to develop some accessible resources and materials that you might find useful if you are thinking about how you might use digital. We will be exploring what type of member offers and benefits you might like from us to make it easy and affordable for you to look at digital volunteer management and most importantly we hope to get to know you all a little bit better.
Chris
You can watch Chris and Ruth at AVM discuss the new partnership below. We’re excited to see what can become of this partnership with AVM heading into 2022.
We also worked with the guys in Scotland to help them launch their first ever cross-sector heritage volunteer campaign called Make your Mark. The ambition of the campaign was fantastic, how can they recruit a new generation of heritage volunteers and how can they broaden inclusion and accessibility to a whole group of new people. We were really happy to be part of the program and that TeamKinetic was to be used to drive the recruitment campaign. You can watch their launch video here, it’s pretty cool.
— Make Your Mark in Volunteering (@MakeYourMarkVol) December 1, 2021
October
October brought Halloween and our sponsorship of AVM’s annual conference. The two-day conference opened up insightful conversations with speakers that really got us thinking! It was our first time sponsoring the event and it was really nice to support something we have attended for so long.
It was also really lovely to catch up with people and see a number of faces we hadn’t seen in a while, even if it was just over Zoom, who knows what next year might look like but fingers crossed for catching up over the buffet or a glass of wine.
October also brought the first of our talks regarding digital volunteer management with the Charity Retail Association. We really wanted 2021 to be the year we looked at how we could better support the wider sector and working with both Charity Retail and AVM were key decisions that would enable us to share our knowledge and support the wider sector.
If you were there, I hope our 30/40 minute talk was insightful for those attending, and we hope we will be doing more of these in the new year.
November Talks:
We had a quick start to November with the Local Government Chronicle Awards. Once again, we were nominated in two categories, for our work over the past year with Halton and St Helens. The categories were Campaign of the Year and Technology. While we didn’t win, it was an honour to be nominated. We have to thank everyone at Halton and St Helens and the volunteers for creating such a successful project. (Chris also enjoyed a night away in London maybe a little too much if his hangover was anything to go by!)
We also were honoured to be asked to talk at COP26. The invitation came from the team running Make Your Mark in Scotland. We also heard from the likes of Chester Zoo, the National History Museum and Rob Jackson. It was another insightful day, which Katie personally enjoyed live tweeting her way through.
Volunteering, like every sphere of human life, needs to look at its role in climate change and it was really inspiring to hear what is happening and what you can do to make a change.
If you missed it why not check it out here:
The middle of November meant it was time to head down south for the day. Jumping on the train to London, we met up with the Charity Retail Association for their People Management Group – a successful hybrid event we spoke at. This was the first hybrid event we’ve attended, and we wanted to highlight the work put in by the team to make sure everything ran smoothly. While half of the attendees weren’t in the room, it never felt like they were anywhere else (apart from the leftover lunches!) We want to thank the CRA for including us in multiple of their events over 2021, and we hope to be continuing this into 2022.
Being back in person at an event was great and it felt like it was all going to be plain sailing moving into 2022, little did we know what was about to change everything!
December Celebrations:
In December, the Health Innovation Network (HIN) on behalf of NHSX released an evaluation into the value of micro-volunteering applications during the global pandemic. We were really excited to be a key contributor to the findings. The findings were also positive towards TeamKinetic and our approach to localised Micro-volunteering community response.
Through the use of these applications, over 100,000 individuals carried out 1.5 million tasks for the vulnerable during the global pandemic. Evidence suggests that micro-volunteering engages a willing volunteer force and addresses unmet community needs. It was also clear that the pandemic drove interest into the value of these platforms.
We also managed to squeeze in our Christmas party and our annual Christmas jumper day which was fun.
December has not quite turned out as we would have liked. There are refreshed calls for Volunteers to support the booster campaign. It’s all starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day as we find ourselves back in a COVID-induced crisis.
It’s been an uncertain year at times. While we’re still waiting for the days we can ‘go back to normal’, we think we’ve managed to have another successful year and that we have helped to make volunteering that little bit easier and more accessible.
If we have learned anything from 2021, it’s that you can’t plan too far in advance. You should enjoy the simple things in life and take the small victories where you can find them. You just can’t be sure what’s around the corner.
All that’s left to say is Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to those that celebrate. And, finally, have a Happy New Year – we’ll see you in 2022!
We’ve recently released TeamKinetic version 2.09 and you may have noticed a few new features. We’ve added new emailing and expenses features in our latest update.
New Email Features
The video above lays out all the new features.
When creating bulk emails you can now select any number of opportunities to be included in the email. You have the option of including the events that week and if you want to show the volunteer’s statistics across the top. These are all displayed in exactly the same way as within the newsletter so its now possible to send a newsletter type email to any of your volunteers, for any of your opportunities, whenever you like!
We have also rearranged and refactored the preview and draft buttons so you can now send a preview email to your email instantly and save a draft copy without leaving the page. We also now update the saved draft each time you hit the save draft button, rather than creating a new draft.
New Expenses Feature
The video above lays out information needed when adding/processing an Expense.
This is an Enterprise only feature. Administrators will have to switch this module on and off via the Super Admin Menu → Options → Opportunities → ‘Use the in app managed expenses module’.
Opportunities can now either be marked as ‘Managed Expenses’ and/or ‘Expenses Paid’.
Expenses Paid simply means that volunteers will be reimbursed. In this case, you should add details about what expenses are paid and if there’s a cap on the amount. This is useful for providers to specify that their opportunity pays expenses. Managed Expenses means that volunteers will be able upload expense claims which can then be managed by administrators. Managed expenses are always also marked as expenses paid.
If enabled, volunteers can select applicable opportunities from their dashboard, upload a receipt, an explanation of what the expense is for, and the amount they are claiming. Admins will get an alert when a new claim is submitted by a volunteer and can manage them all from a simple interface. The admin can view the receipt, adjust the claim amount, and update the claim status. A full history of changes and notes is maintained and viewable underneath the main claim.
Any issues?
New updates can create small problems elsewhere in the site (despite rigorous testing!) If you run into any issues on your site, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. You can either use the live chat feature, or raise a support ticket.
