19th February 2021
Russell Webster and Revolving Doors Agency are seeking to conduct the largest ever survey of service user volunteers – people who use or have used services and who volunteer within these services – to help them create a guide for services offering this opportunity.
Most organisations and charities in the criminal justice, drug and alcohol, homelessness and complex needs sectors involve current or former service users as volunteers who take on different roles (e.g. peer mentor/supporter or recovery navigator).
To ensure good practice around supporting service user volunteers, Russell Webster and Revolving Doors Agency have been funded to produce a guide for services which will be designed around the findings of this survey.
The online survey, which should take less than 15 minutes to complete, asks people to share their experiences – good, bad and indifferent – on being a service user volunteer.
The survey asks for short feedback around a number of key issues:
- How many hours people spend volunteering
- The quality of training they receive
- The nature of the support they get
- Help in developing skills and finding paid work
- Whether people receive expenses
- How much choice people have about the amount of voluntary work they do
If you are a service user volunteer, working as a peer mentor or any other role, please take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/peer21
If service users volunteer for your organisation, please ask them to take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/peer21
For more information on the survey or the project, please email Russell Webster