‘Volunteering - enhancing, not replacing’
THE subject of volunteering, particularly during the pandemic, has been subjected to a great deal of comment and reflection.
I have worked in many voluntary roles for over 40 years, and have given (I hope), and also gained, a great deal from all of them. I was also a nurse and lecturer in health care, enabling me to further understand the relationship between professionals and volunteers in enhancing each other’s roles. Volunteering, for those able to do so, contributes a great deal to both individuals and communities alike.
However, volunteering must supplement, and not replace, statutory responsibility. Volunteers should enhance professional health and social care provision, not replace it. Many people in our community provide care for family members, children, older people, those with disabilities. Care that is largely unseen and undervalued.
More and more, volunteering is being asked to cover for cuts in health, social care and educational deficits.
Years of austerity measures have forced individuals to care for themselves, care on their own, or having to seek the help of voluntary
agencies as there is no other help available. Statutory services must be provided by recognised professionals, with experience and education in their field, and professional standards and obligations to uphold. This is not to say volunteers do not possess skills and knowledge but so often these have to be self -managed and selfacquired, often through personal funding.
A large part of the work of many voluntary organisations is fund raising in order to bridge gaps in people’s lives. Feeding families, listening to lonely and isolated individuals, providing transport, providing services for teenagers with no other support, the list is endless.
David Cameron’s much critiqued ‘big society’ was a means to encourage volunteers to bridge the gap between demand and capacity. Where volunteers are used to ‘replace’, i.e. take the role of someone previously paid to do a job, or ‘displaced’, i.e where paid staff make way for volunteers to do their job, there are issue to be considered related to exploitation.
Volunteering is essential and welcome, when it is not exploited. Volunteers bring many benefits, service improvements and investment. They make for caring communities.
It takes place quietly in people’s lives and is often unheard. People giving and sharing, taking only comfort that they’ve helped someone along the way. People coming together to share, because that’s what they do. I thank every one of them. If we can pull together to ensure that voluntary organisations are an addition, not a replacement then everyone wins. Lyn Swindlehurst Town and District Councillor