Volunteering has always been a huge part of my life from the good ole days of toddling around behind my Mum as she ran youth groups and mother and baby groups at our local church, starting my own voluntary fair-trade group in secondary school and jumping head first into youthwork volunteering at the age of 16.
Volunteering was so much a part of my life I never really considered that what I loved doing for free could actually be how I made my living.
I've now been working in the voluntary sector for almost fen years having lead youth programmes and volunteering strategies at a range of organisations including the Sea Cadets, the London Fire Brigade, The Kids Network, Refuge and the National Domestic Abuse Helpline and finally at Volunteering Matters where I currently call home.
And of course I still find plenty of time to squeeze in some volunteering running summer camps with the St John Bosco Children's camp.
Throughout this work I've seen organisations across the sector make commitments to be more trauma-informed and accessible for our service users and beneficiaries, but I didn't see that same work going into how we support and work with our volunteers, who are the driving force of so many of our organisations.
I wanted to create a trauma-informed volunteer management strategy for the organisation I was with at the time and set it as one of my objectives. But in typical Maria fashion I'd made a decision before really considering the work that would go info if, because as it turned out, there wasn't any training or resources available in this area.
But I still thought this was such an important piece of work, as so many volunteers come to us with their own lived experience. And so I started researching and making those resources myself, and here we are!
I hope throughout this site you can find something to help your volunteer management be more trauma-informed and create a safer and more fulfilling environment for your brilliant volunteers. The ethos of Inclusive Volunteering is to make something accessible and welcoming for one, we make it so for everyone.
