Background to project
Project aims
About the research process
Research Outputs
Project Advisers

Project Background

Research has shown that volunteering benefits both the individual volunteer and the wider community. For people facing social exclusion in other aspects of their lives volunteering offers particular benefits, including:

• access to social networks

• opportunities for learning and developing skills

• improved physical and mental well-being

• the opportunity to experience the satisfaction of making a contribution.

Recent research, in particular the 1997 National Survey of Volunteering, suggests that certain groups are under-represented in terms of their involvement in formal volunteering – mirroring their exclusion from society in other respects.

So far, research has focused on young people, older people and unemployed people. While we now have a good understanding about the barriers that exclude these groups from volunteering, we know very little about those which work against participation from other marginalised groups.

This project will consider the relationship between volunteering and social exclusion. It will concentrate on three groups for whom social exclusion can be an issue – people from black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people and offenders/ex-offenders.

Project Aims

The aims of the project are to examine:

• the barriers – organisational, attitudinal and institutional – which prevent people from these groups becoming volunteers

• the steps which need to be undertaken to enable access for people from the groups into volunteering

• the benefits of active participation as volunteers in the community, both for the individuals from these groups and the wider community.

Research Process

The project will work closely with volunteer-involving organisations in the three chosen geographical areas. In each area the main volunteer development agency will be working in partnership with the Institute to develop the research in the region and establish contacts with local people.   The research methodology will include:

• Review of current literature on social exclusion and volunteering, particularly focusing on black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people and offenders/ex-offenders

• Structured interviews/postal questionnaire survey with respondents from each group in each geographical area – including both volunteers and non-volunteers

• Focus groups and one-to-one interviews with respondents from each group and with representatives from volunteer-involving organisations

• Case studies of a number of key volunteer-involving organisations, both mainstream agencies and those working with people from socially excluded groups.

Research Outputs

The research will lead to:

• the production of three good practice guides (one for each socially excluded group) aimed at volunteering managers, volunteer-involving organisations and policy makers at local, regional and national level

• three introductory leaflets offering a guide to volunteering and aimed at people from the socially excluded groups themselves, to be distributed through key intermediary agencies at national, regional and local levels

• a research report and launch event.

• People from the three groups through greater awareness about the value of volunteering and how to become involved, and via improved volunteering management practice within volunteer-involving organisations

• Policy makers at national, regional and local level through greater awareness about the barriers to involvement among people from these groups and the steps to be taken to increase participation

• Volunteer-involving organisations through greater awareness about the organisational barriers preventing people from these socially excluded groups from volunteering and the steps to be taken to increase their participation and retention as volunteers.
  

Project Advisors

The project will be guided, nationally and locally, through the following:

• A National Steering Group

• A Regional Advisory Group in each of the three geographical areas

• External Advisors and Reference Groups

Represented on these groups will be a range of local and national volunteer-involving organisations, local volunteer development agencies, volunteers and interested individuals. If you or your organisation would like to be included in one of the regional advisory groups then please contact angela.ellis@
volunteeringengland.org