People

Peter, a researcher working with IVR, is Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia and Co-Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the user led organisation and network as a long-term user of mental health services. He has a longstanding track record of work in the field of participation and citizen involvement as academic, service user, researcher, educator and activist.

Linda, a researcher working with IVR, is leading on developing projects exploring community provision for people living with dementia and collaborating with the NIHR funded Applied Research Collaboration East of England Inclusive Involvement in Research for Practice Led Health and Social Care theme.

Jarina is a member of the IVR Advisory Panel. She is the Strategic Volunteering Lead at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). She advises organisations on the design and implementation of volunteer strategies, across all sectors. She provides consultancy, training and guidance. Clients include Community Leisure UK, Leonard Cheshire and the Parks Trust. She brings hands-on experience in volunteer recruitment, support and coordination in a pan-London lottery funded volunteering programme for refugees and migrants at the Evelyn Oldfield Unit. She started volunteering in Uganda, in community development and local capacity building, and then brought this love home to work with a myriad of grassroots groups. She has served as a trustee of two charities, the Diaspora Volunteering Alliance and One World Action. She is the NCVO lead for the Vision for Volunteering, a national consultation to create a long term plan for volunteering in England.

Sara, a researcher working with IVR on projects such as ‘Volunteering and Wellbeing and ‘Employer Supported Volunteering’, is Professor of Personnel Economics at UEA.

Kate, a researcher working with IVR, is studying for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at UEA’s School of Politics, Philosophy, language and Communication Studies.

Sally, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has worked in the NHS for 19 years and has held positions in Patient Services, Bereavement Services and PALS prior to taking up the role of Voluntary Services Lead for the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. As well as an internal team of almost 700 volunteers, Sally manages and supports a portfolio of external volunteer groups affiliated to her Trust and has created a service framework to promote partnership working where there is potential for links to support specialist clinical services. Sally has been a member of the National Association of Voluntary Services Managers (NAVSM) in 2004 and was appointed as Vice Chair in 2016. She is passionate about identifying and implementing strategic development and service change while creating greater volunteer satisfaction. Her role on the NEC provides opportunities to work Nationally with partners to influence change and promote the value and growth of volunteering in healthcare.

Heather, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, is a musicologist and musician and taught at UEA and University of Cambridge, Madingley Hall. She later set up the voluntary organisation Come Singing to provide over twenty therapeutic singing groups monthly in Norwich for Age UK, NSFT, NHS, Barchester, NCC, Norse and in the community. Her idea of Music Mirrors, simple written audio biographical cues added to care plans, arose from this. It is currently the subject of a 4 year intervention study at Zurich University and part of an ethnographic study, Care for Music, led by Exeter University and University of Bergen. Heather was awarded a BEM in 2017 for services to dementia.

Jurgen, the Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research, manages its day to day activities and will lead IVR into its next phase as a research centre at UEA.

Irene, a researcher working with IVR on the project ‘Mobilising UK Voluntary action, is Professor of Public Policy at the Northumbria University.

Mark, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, is Chief Executive of Norfolk Citizens Advice and a volunteer with the Quality Assurance in Language Education Network as Independent Chair and with Hethersett Athletic as a football coach. Prior to moving to the charity sector, Mark spent 25 years in international and higher education, studying and working in the US, Russia, Italy, Slovenia and Poland and managing business and health departments at the University of East Anglia.

Véronique Jochum, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel and formerly Head of Research at NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations), is now a freelance social research consultant. Véronique has substantial experience of designing, managing and delivering complex research projects and supporting organisations to think about the implications of research findings for their work. She brings skills in both quantitative and qualitative methods and has trained in narrative research and participatory action research methods. Much of her research has been on volunteering and social action, including high profile projects such as Time Well Spent and Pathways through Participation. She has always been committed to communicating findings in a compelling way to policy, practitioner and community audiences. She is a trustee of Forest Recycling Project and volunteers for Age UK Waltham Forest.

Kathleen, a researcher working with IVR, focuses on the well-being of older, vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups. Much of her recent research explores the lived experience of older people living in care homes. She has a keen interest in volunteering in sheltered housing and through her links with IVR hopes to co-develop voluntary action with older people in the community.

Ben, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel and a researcher working with IVR, teaches across politics and media modules in PSI, most notably a practice module called Activist Campaigning, which has seen students work with Greenpeace, Generation Rent and People and Planet on live campaigns. He is currently Associate Dean for Engagement and Innovation in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Ben is co-lead on the project ‘Fine City Neighbours Network: connect to connect’, which is supporting people who have multiple barriers to going online.

Mike, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has worked as a volunteer, researcher and writer, teacher and consultant with voluntary action since getting involved in community organisations in North Kensington in the 1970s. At University of East London he developed teaching and research on voluntary organisations and volunteering, and was joint founder of the Institute for Volunteering Research with Volunteering England. Subsequently, at Volunteering England and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), he led on policy and management for volunteering. He is Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Philanthropy, University of Kent. He co-wrote the fourth edition of The Complete Volunteer Management Handbook (Directory of Social Change, 2019).

Chris, a researcher working with IVR on questions of volunteering and development, is a Researcher with the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation based at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning of UEA. Chris is currently working for the consortium commissioned to provide evidence for the ‘State of the World’s Volunteerism Report’ of United Nations Volunteers.

Alan, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, is Head of Volunteering and Employee Engagement at the RSPB and a Director of the Association of Volunteer Managers. The RSPB is Nature’s Voice and at the RSPB, I’m the voice of volunteering. I’ve spent all my working life, already longer than I care to remember, working to enthuse, inspire and enable people to put their time and talents to best use for nature and the environment. This passion came about from being a full time volunteer myself with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers way back in 1989 – fab times. Today I’m very fortunate to be Head of Volunteering and Employee Engagement for the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) What’s that mean? Well in short, I’m the strategic lead for Volunteering at the RSPB and head up internal communications as after all our volunteers are part of our organisational ‘family’ along with our employees and together we are all One Team for Nature. My role is all about making sure we create impactful volunteering opportunities that make the best use of people’s time, passion, skills, and knowledge. We also want to make sure people have such a great time volunteering with us they would be happy to recommend volunteering with us to a friend or family member. As well as that small challenge I’m responsible for internal communications at the RSPB ensuring everyone (paid or unpaid) knows what is going on, why and how they can get involved. I’m still volunteering myself as a Director of the Association of Volunteer Managers and Chair of the AVM Conference Planning Group. As John F Kennedy said: “Every person can make a difference, and every person should try.” My mantra is to just keep trying!

Bridget, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, first became involved in volunteering as a teenager in Devon and following her undergraduate studies, obtained a year-long post with a University Student’s Union as a Student Community Action Co-ordinator, both co-ordinating and developing student voluntary action in different sectors of the local community. Since qualifying as a social worker and then moving into academic positions, although volunteering has not been central to her career, one of the early research studies that she led concerned training volunteers in 3 European countries to work with older people with dementia in residential care settings. Bridget is a Reader Emerita in Mental Health of Older People in the School of Health Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and an independent consultant. She retains a keen interest in voluntary action and volunteering.

Guy, a researcher working with IVR, is leading a project investigating the characteristics and role of volunteers in well-connected end of life care at UEA.

Fiona, a member of the IVR Delivery Group and IVR Advisory Panel, is the academic lead for volunteering research at UEA and the Inclusion Research Theme lead. She will lead on a range of projects, for example, considering the role of volunteering to support inclusion and the questions of exclusion in volunteering.

Anna, a researcher working with IVR, is Professor of Education at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, and holds the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation. Anna is leading the consortium commissioned to provide evidence for the ‘State of the World’s Volunteerism Report’ of United Nations Volunteers.

Ros, a member of the IVR Advisory Panel, has been a member of the House of Lords since May 2000 and has held a variety of front bench positions including Communities and Local Government, building on her membership of Suffolk County Council between 1993 and 2005. Her interest in the community and voluntary sector was born out of this this work, and Ros has worked with Volunteering England and NCVO, as well as being a Trustee of Community Action Suffolk, the infrastructure body for the County.

Ewen, a researcher working with IVR, is Professor of Medical Sociology in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Essex.

Joanna, a researcher working with IVR, is an independent researcher and evaluator.

Ritchie, a researcher working with IVR, is a Senior Research Associate at the Norwich Business School.