Volunteer Centre Salford Customer Care Commitment

This policy is used by the staff in our Volunteer Centre as a guide to ensure you receive the best possible services from us. It is also on our websites so that you can access it and know what to expect from our services.

Volunteer Centre Salford has five core functions:

  1. Strategic development of volunteering
  2. Good practice development
  3. Developing volunteering opportunities
  4. Voice of volunteering
  5. Brokerage

We have been awarded Volunteer England Quality Accreditation (VCQA) and have received national recognition for our Volunteering and Diversity Program -Towards Excellence.

 Our two main customer groups are:

  • People who want to volunteer
  • Organisations that involve or would like to involve volunteers

People who want to volunteer

Making an enquiry

Volunteer Centre Salford defines a ‘volunteer enquiry’ as a request for information about volunteering in general or relating to a specific opportunity. Enquiries may be made by email, phone or via our website.

Our commitment to you:

  • All telephone calls will be answered in a prompt and helpful manner.
  • Email enquiries will be responded to within 10 working days.
  • Where we are unable to do this (for example if someone is on annual leave) we will inform you as soon as possible and agree on a new deadline.
  • Upon request, staff will book confidential, one to one interviews/appointments at the earliest available time.
  • We will be punctual for all appointments.
  • We will take the required information from our customers in a courteous and sensitive manner.

Helping you find a volunteering opportunity

Our commitment to you:

  • We will use a variety of methods to match volunteers to appropriate volunteering opportunities, including telephone and one-to-one interviews, drop-in sessions and Do-it (the national volunteering database).
  • We will collect and use information (such as your contact details, the type of volunteering you are interested in and some personal details like your age, gender and ethnicity) in line with our confidentiality and data protect policies and data protection legislation (For a copy of our Data Protection Policy please contact Kirsten Blackwood 0161 787 7795)
  • We will use your details to demonstrate to our funders and partners that we are able to reach all sectors of the community, but we will never identify you individually without your permission.
  • We will operate within current equality legislation (the Equality Act 2010).
  • We will do our best to match your skills, experience and background to an appropriate volunteering opportunity.
  • If we think an opportunity is unsuitable for you we will always explain the reason why.
  • We work hard to ensure that we have a wide variety of opportunities to offer to people, but there may be times when we do not have the placement you want. In this case we will: keep records of areas of volunteering that are in high demand, promote our services to, and work with, organisations in these fields to help them develop and create more opportunities, offer you alternative opportunities based on your interests.
  • Where possible, we will inform you about what to expect from different recruitment processes for the opportunities you are interested in.
  • We will keep an up to date database of volunteering opportunities and individuals who want to volunteer.

Screening

Different volunteering opportunities will require you to undergo different levels of screening. This could include interviews, providing references and DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service Check), particularly opportunities that involve working with children or vulnerable adults. If you have any previous convictions this will not necessarily stop you from volunteering.

Our commitment to you:

  • We will inform you if an opportunity requires any kind of screening
  • We will explain what to expect
  • We will discuss any concerns you might have about this in a confidential interview

Expenses

Our commitment to you:

  • We always encourage organisations to pay their volunteers’ expenses, including travel to and from the volunteering opportunity and the cost of any training or equipment that you need to carry out your volunteer role.
  • If an organisation is unable to pay expenses we will inform you of this so that you can make an informed decision as to whether you want to volunteer there.

Organisations that involve or would like to involve volunteers

Registering an opportunity

A volunteering opportunity can be long-term, short term or one-off. It is an activity or the delivery of a service that benefits someone else, the local community or the environment and is done by someone on a voluntary basis, i.e. they have chosen to do it, unpaid.

If your organisation has a volunteering opportunity that you wish to register with Volunteer Centre Salford you will be required to register your organisation with us, if you haven't already done so, to create a volunteer management account.

We’ll ask you about your organisation, its aims and area of work. We’ll also ask about some of the policies and procedures you have in place to ensure the safety and fair treatment of volunteers. We may choose not to register your opportunities until you have certain policies and procedures in place. With regards to your volunteering opportunity, we’ll want to know all the details of what the role is, where it’ll be based, your recruitment and screening processes if applicable and whether or not you’ll pay volunteers' expenses.

Helping organisations to find volunteers

Our commitment to you:

  • We will support you to develop all the appropriate policies and procedures needed to register with us.
  • We will pass all relevant information about your volunteering opportunity to potential volunteers.
  • We will support you to put appropriate recruitment processes in place
  • We will keep you informed of any progress made towards finding the right volunteer for your opportunity.
  • We will inform you of any additional volunteer recruitment opportunities in your area.
  • We will help you to make your opportunity as appealing to potential volunteers as possible.
  • We will support you to develop new volunteering opportunities.

Compliments, Comments and Complaints

Our commitment to you: