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Introduction
Working with schools
Learning experiences for all
Finding a space
Designing and organising your activities
Administration
Fundraising
Information and support services
Education policy
Health and safety issues
Child protection
Working with volunteers
Dealing with problems
Skills and training
Resources and equipment
Handling collections and conservation
Step-by-step guide
Weblink index
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Working with volunteers
Most museums – even large ones – use volunteers in many capacities and they are a very valuable source of knowledge and practical help.
| Reliability |
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| One of the major problems with volunteers is that they often have other commitments and this can mean that they are not as reliable as paid workers although this is not always the case. If you are planning an education and family learning programme, you do need to ensure that there is going to be a minimum staff cover at events so you need to make your volunteers aware of the responsibility of committing themselves to activities. You also need to ensure that anyone taking on a supervisory or instructional role can cope with handling groups of lively children. It often seems easy from the outside! |
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| Suitability |
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The background and interests of volunteers varies enormously and they do need to be carefully matched to the tasks in hand. Some volunteers are very good at researching and collating information but would not be willing to work with groups of children. Their suitability for different tasks needs to be identified and then training given where necessary (See Training section). Using your existing pool of volunteers is a good starting point since you will already have an idea of their reliability and preferences and you don’t want to risk insulting them by looking for further help.
If you are actively looking for volunteers to assist in an education programme try the local volunteer bureau because they have experience of handling potential volunteers and matching them to suitable activities. This will help to avoid situations where s volunteer starts to work with you and turns out to be unsuitable for the post which can cause problems if they are then moved to something else. It may be possible to start a volunteer on a systematic scheme of work across all museum disciplines to ascertain their suitability for a particular placement first, thereby avoiding difficult situations.
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| Police disclosure |
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Volunteers, like all other people working with children will need to submit to a Police Disclosure. These can take a few weeks to come through so allow for this timescale when planning your activities. (See ‘Protecting Yourself and Others’) If you are lucky, you may come across a volunteer who has already had a Police Check which is still valid since many careers now insist upon them.
* Ask existing, suitable volunteers if they would like to be involved first
* Make sure that skills are matched with tasks
* Asses their reliability before planning them into future activities
* Use volunteer agencies so people have already been screened once
* Police Checks must be done on all people with access to children or other vulnerable people (the elderly, disabled, etc)
* Make sure training is available and part of normal practice
* Evaluate and monitor for Health and Safety reasons
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