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Involving Older Volunteers, Normalising Difference
Three top tips to involving older volunteers.
18 July 2023
By
Ruth Leonard, Katherine Deane, Mike Locke, Jurgen Grotz
Three top tips for involving older volunteers and to start normalising difference:
Start by understanding complex persons!
Start by considering shifting purposes!
Start by exploring uncertain endings!
On Thursday 06 July 2023, the Institute for Volunteering Research organised a symposium entitled ‘Co-creating solutions to barriers in volunteer involvement of and for older adult volunteers’, at the Annual Research Conference of the British Society of Gerontology at the University of East Anglia.
What we set out to do?
In this symposium we wanted to assess and discuss the physical, personal, organisational and structural barriers to volunteering for older volunteers. The format of this symposium was deliberately co-productive, involving academics, practitioners and people with lived experience, exploring knowledges and experiences from different perspectives.
Why is this important?
Many older people are involved as volunteers. However, levels of involvement are changing. As the Centre for Ageing Better put it in 2018, ‘The challenge we face is not to engage more people in later life in community contribution, but to make sure people in later life can continue to contribute’. Furthermore, the pandemic exacerbated existing social, political, cultural and economic barriers as well as creating new ones. Such barriers do not just relate to age alone but also to health, income, ethnicity and other contributory factors. Consideration of the physical, personal, organisational and structural barriers is required now, so we can create solutions to them in this ‘new normal’.
Key points of learning
Exploring barriers to volunteer involvement for older volunteers is extremely complex as physical, personal, organisational structural barriers affect individuals in many diverse ways. Yet, in our discussion, within this complexity, three themes emerged, all relating to a simple overarching learning point: solutions to barriers can only be found if those who are experiencing them are involved in finding solutions, from beginning to end.
Inclusively involving older people in creating solutions.
Older people want to become involved, and organisations want to involve them. When developing volunteer involvement opportunities we should expect meaningful involvement of older people, co-producing solutions with them as experts by experience. This will enable us to better understand differences as old people are not all the same and do not experience the same barriers.
If volunteer involvement opportunities are developed without such involvement, they are likely to present many more barriers.
Sharing purposes
Volunteer involvement can be good for the wellbeing of older people but only if it is a good experience. In order to ensure a good experience understanding and agreeing shared purposes is important.
If involving volunteers is done badly, for example, in an exploitative way, the reverse is likely.
Preparing for uncertainty
Involving volunteers can include supporting people through life’s transitions. Such transitions can both act as a reason to become involved and also a trigger to withdraw. When coming to terms with change and uncertainty, volunteer involvement can be flexible and should explore opportunities.
However, especially if a task is in the forefront of preparing for volunteering, rather than the view of the volunteers, the volunteers might experience a feeling of excessive obligation. That can mean they will not even start because they are afraid that they cannot quit, and that more is being asked of them than they want to be involved with.
Summary
If we want to make sure people in later life can continue to contribute through volunteer involvement, we will need to find solutions to barriers. We will need to normalise difference by understanding complex people, exploring shared aims and acknowledging the effects of change. In practice we suggest three top tips for involving older volunteers and normalising difference:
Start by understanding complex persons!
Start by considering shifting purposes!
Start by exploring uncertain endings!
And remember, volunteer involvement should be making a difference, and should also always be little bit of fun.
The Provocation and the recording of the session are available to view. We recognise that the sound quality in the recording is poor but wanted to make it available.
Let us know what you think by emailing info.ivr@uea.ac.uk
The participation of Ruth Leonard, Mike Locke and Jurgen Grotz was funded by the Institute for Volunteering Research
The time of Katherine Deane (UEA) and Jurgen Grotz (UEA) was also supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East of England (NIHR ARC EoE) at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. The views expressed are those of the author[s] and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.’
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