Brighton and Hove Volunteers (BHV), is part of the new national youth volunteering programme v. We are a vinvolved team; this has replaced the Millennium Volunteers scheme. vinvolved is England’s biggest ever youth action scheme and is aiming to inspire half a million young people to volunteer.

v exists to inspire a new generation of young volunteers (aged 16-25) in England and enable a lasting change in the quality, quantity and diversity of youth volunteering.

BHV supports organisations in recruiting volunteers.

There are a few requirements that you need to meet;

• You are a non profit organisation
• You have health and safety policies and risk assessments in place.
• You have adequate insurance
• You work within equal opportunities guidelines

Registering your opportunity:

To register your volunteering opportunity with BHV you need to complete two forms, an opportunity form and a project checklist. (Linked to forms that can be downloaded). Just complete these forms and either e-mail or post them back to us. If you have more than one opportunity, please use a different opportunities form for each.

Types of opportunities:

Whether your opportunity is one day, on going part time or full time, we can advertise your opportunity to our team of volunteers.

Already have volunteers aged 16-25 and would like them to receive a national certificate for their volunteering with you?

If you already work with young volunteers we can provide them a national v certificate for their volunteering. Young people simply need to complete a short registration form and log their hours using a log book that we provide.

We encourage and support organisations to promote BHV to their young people for them to gain their certificate.

Please get in touch and we can send you the number of volunteer registration packs that you require. We can also send young people further information on the national scheme. To read more about the scheme Already volunteering and want to register to receive the new national V certificates? (linked to vol’s page)

Why promote your opportunity with BHV:

We are committed to adopting good practice in the recruitment and retention of volunteers.

BHV is part of the new national youth volunteer programme.

We aim to promote safe and supported volunteering opportunities, and will provide support and guidance to organisations if required. We will shortly be developing a good practice guide for working with young volunteers. We will also be seeking to consult organisations as to what training workers would like in relation to working with young volunteers. We will be facilitating training sessions in areas of development that organisations want. Please let us know if your organisation would like training around any specific areas related to working with young volunteers.

We aim to match volunteers with placements according to interests, skills and abilities.

We support young volunteers throughout their volunteering placement. We also provide young volunteers with a national V certificate to acknowledge their time as a volunteer.

How we promote your opportunity:

Once we receive your completed opportunity form we use this in our folder of opportunities for young volunteers to look at when they are seeking a volunteer placement, We also up-load opportunities to V-Base, this is an on-line search tool for finding volunteering opportunities in any region. Your contact details will not be up-loaded, volunteers can see what is involved in an opportunity and if they are interested they will be referred onto us for further details and to register. Once per week we also send out an e-mail bulletin to all volunteers advertising any new opportunities and any ‘one off’ events. Once per quarter we also produce a newsletter which is sent to all volunteers, we can also advertise new opportunities and ‘one off’s within this. Please keep us up-dated of any events that you may have coming up so that we can advertise this to volunteers on your behalf.

Extra information on your organisation:

If you have any promotional material, past newsletters, posters, induction packs or any extra information that you can provide us with, we will attach this to your opportunities form. This helps to provide volunteers with further information and an insight into the organisation.

Working with young volunteers:

• Volunteers bring a new perspective, fresh ideas, an enthusiasm to learn, and an extra pair of hands.
• Our young volunteers have a diverse wealth of experience and want to get involved with their local community.
• Young volunteers can contribute to many aspects of your organisation, including giving a youth focussed vision to your services. They just need the support and encouragement to be on your advisory board or similar.

Health and safety and placement visits:

For all new placements (excluding ‘one off’ events), BHV will need to arrange a time for our placement officer, Nicola Chiles, to visit and complete our health and safety checklist. This should take no longer than 30 minutes. Once we have received the completed forms and undertaken the health and safety checklist we can refer volunteers to you. Please note, we will not contact you to organise completing the health and safety checklist until we have a young person who wishes to volunteer within your organisation.

We also supply young people with information on general health and safety information, please see Health and safety for volunteers. (Linked to vol’s page on health and safety)

Matching young people to opportunities:

The details that you provide us with on the opportunities form gives us the information that we show to volunteers. When volunteers register with BHV they complete an application form and volunteer development plan. This allows us to understand what types of opportunities the young person is interested in, the skills they currently have, skills they wish to develop and why they wish to volunteer. We can then support the young person to find an appropriate placement.

If you state that you require certain things from volunteers, for example, minimum age range, CRB, minimum time commitment etc, then we will discuss these with the young person. To the best of our ability we will only refer young people to your organisation that can fulfil the requirements for volunteers that you state.  However, the final decision regarding suitability of volunteers rests with yourselves, as the placement organisation.

Good practice:

• To have an induction for all volunteers, as close as there start date as possible.
• If the position is working with clients or service users, to offer supervision.
• To offer supervision for any activity if required by the volunteer.
• To offer expenses for travel to and from the volunteers placement.
• To support volunteers in gaining any training that will enhance their work with you.

‘One off’ opportunities:

If you have short term opportunities please send us an e-mail detailing the event. Please provide us with as many details as possible.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

If you would like some BHV leaflets to pass onto your volunteers, please let us know.