Managing Volunteers in Palliative Care

Information for managers and coordinators of palliative care volunteers in Western Australia

Note: this page is intended for the managers and coordinators of palliative care volunteers who work in palliative care and other health and social support services. Please visit our ‘Volunteering in palliative care’ page if you are interested in becoming a palliative care volunteer.

Palliative Care Australia notes that ‘the resources needed to support volunteers are substantial. Their time is free, but not the infrastructure to support them.’ Many Western Australia palliative care services report that they do not get funding for managing or coordinating their volunteers.

The role of Manager or Coordinator of Palliative Care Volunteers involves:

• Recruitment and selection of palliative care volunteers
  
• Training, induction and orientation of palliative care volunteers
  
• Matching palliative care volunteers with clients
• Performance review & ongoing development of palliative care volunteers
  
• Ensuring recognition of palliative care volunteers
• Handing grievances and complaints
• Policy development and strategic planning

WA Network of Managers of Volunteers

At the instigation of Cancer Council WA, the WA Network of Managers of Volunteers was formed in early 2010. Following the first meeting of the Network in February 2010, the Executive Committee of Palliative Care WA Inc agreed that the organisation should support the Network into the future.

All mangers and coordinators of palliative care volunteers are invited to join the WA Network of Managers of Volunteers. Please contact the Executive Officer of Palliative Care WA Inc on pcwainc@palliativecarewa.asn.au, or call 1300 551 704 during business hours.

Meetings will be held on the following dates:

• 02 March 2012
  
• 04 May 2012
  
• 06 July 2012
  
• 07 September 2012
  
• 02 November 2012
  

Meetings start at 10:30 AM, and are held in Perth, but teleconference facilities are available. As much as possible meetings will be coordinated with other events in Perth so that travel demands on country participants are minimised.

Resources and information

Palliative care volunteering

The following links relate specifically to palliative care volunteering:
Palliative Care Volunteer Standards PDF (26 pages, 619 Kb).
Published by the Victorian Department of Human Services in 2007, this material will also be broadly applicable in Western Australia

www.caresearch.com.au > Professional Groups
This page has a varied range of information for both palliative care volunteers and the managers/coordinators of volunteers

Edition 17 of the Residential Aged Care Palliative Approach Newsletter (July 2010) (4 pages, 569 Kb) features lots of information about the role of volunteers in aged care in Australia

Volunteers contributing to a palliative approach in aged care: A toolkit
(142 pages, 1 Mb, published 2005)

Volunteers in hospice and palliative care: A handbook for volunteer service managers (2nd edition) (240 page book) – by Scott, Howlett & Doyle, International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, published by OUP 2009 (ISBN13: 978-0199545827)

www.pallcarevic.asn.au/media/1264650929524-2820.pdf - this is the order form for Palliative Care Victoria’s excellent Volunteer Training Resource Kit which was released in 2008

Volunteering in general

The following links go to information that is of a more general nature:

www.volunteeringwa.org.au - this is the website of Volunteering WA – note the specific ‘For volunteer organisations’ section which includes a comprehensive list of upcoming training events and support meetings for managers and coordinators of volunteers – the ‘Links’ menu selection will take you to a list of all the Volunteer Resource Centres in Western Australia

www.volunteeringaustralia.org – this is the website of Volunteering Australia – the ‘Skills & Training’ menu link takes you to information about the National Volunteers Skills Centre and about new nationally accredited training packages – there are also lots of helpful free resources available for download

Further Links

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