Welcome to Inclusive Volunteering your trusted resource for promoting inclusion and trauma-informed practice in the voluntary sector. We are here to help equip you with the knowledge, tools, and strategies to create truly inclusive environments and deliver positive change for those you serve.
Our volunteers bring a rich history of lived experience and cultural differences to our charities that we massively value, so we need to ensure we are doing all we can to support, welcome, champion and accommodate them.
Our volunteer teams need to reflect the beautifully diverse communities they serve. We need to create a culture that allows people to volunteer in a way that feels not just accepting of the many building blocks that make them who they are but celebrates those things too.
An inclusive culture within your voluntary organisation doesn’t just benefit the individual volunteer, helping them feel safe and supported to be their authentic selves, but also helps your organisation grow and flourish. If volunteers feel more accepted and your opportunities are more accessible you will welcome a more diverse and engaged fleet of committed volunteers.
Volunteers of the global majority are twice as likely to feel excluded compared to volunteers overall.
21% of disabled global majority volunteers feel excluded, which is disproportionately high.
70.4% of people have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, and of course people bring this lived experience to their volunteering.
In the UK, it is estimated that 15-20% of the population is neurodivergent, so we need to ensure our processes are accessible to all.
Trauma can impact us all as individuals, groups or communities, at different
points in our lives. Trauma-informed practice recognises this and puts in place
safeguards to protect people from re-traumatisation or additional stressors so
that they can live, work or volunteer in an environment that feels safe, supportive
and nurturing.
This is especially important in the volunteer sector as so many people with lived
experience decide to volunteer within the sectors that have impacted them the
most.
Our toolkits will guide you on how to bring inclusive practices into all aspects of your volunteer support and management.
Instil the principles of trauma-informed practice in the way your recruit, support and manage your volunteers
Our consultancy packages cater to your organisations needs, creating bespoke training, reviewing policies or co-designing your onboarding procedures.
The InclusiveVolunteering blog shares resources and articles around all things volunteering and working in the charity sector.
If you’re interested in learning more but not ready to jump straight into the training or toolkits, then sign up for news and updates in the link at the bottom of each page of the Inclusive Volunteering site, or follow me, Maria on LinkedIn
Want to know more about our services and how we might be able to work together to make your organisation more inclusive and trauma-informed? Then send an email using the contact form below and I’ll be in touch.
