NCJ Number
89541
Date Published
1981
Length
44 pages
Annotation
The three papers in this booklet address recruiting, training, and supervising volunteer staff, as well as retaining volunteers as active participants in social programs or community organizations.
Abstract
The first article presents a framework for planning and implementing a volunteer component of a community-based organization that has a paid staff. It emphasizes that planning efforts must consider the organization's commitment to community involvement, staff involvement with volunteers, and assigning responsibility for managing volunteers. Also discussed are defining volunteers' roles, recruitment strategies, screening and selection, orientation and training, providing incentives and support, and evaluation. The next article covers a similar area, but is geared specifically to action groups involved in community organizing. Recruiting tactics are outlined, as are ways to retain and reward participants. The author suggests publicly recognizing volunteers' contributions, involving volunteers in decisionmaking, accommodating schedules to members' availability, keeping members well-informed about developments, and publishing regular progress reports. The final section focuses on volunteer training, noting that quality training is a powerful recruiting tool and an important part of the screening process. Guidelines for training address format, objectives, physical setting, group size, scheduling, and resources. The paper identifies nontraditional training aids and discusses orientation, preservice, inservice, and continuing education programs. The booklet includes 12 references.