Coronavirus (COVID-19) volunteering - third sector perspectives: survey report

9 Conclusions and next steps

The survey data have offered many rich insights into the role that volunteering of many different types has played during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is clear that volunteers were an essential part of the response, and that their engagement has helped to support many vulnerable people, particularly those who were shielding and non-shielding at risk, through an isolated and difficult time. It is also clear that many volunteer-involving organisations showed incredible adaptability and resilience, pivoting their work to be able to meet newly emerging needs, and finding ways to adapt their programmes for online and remote delivery wherever possible.

The following are some key emerging themes and conclusions arising from the survey analysis.

9.1 Emerging themes

9.1.1 Restarting work in an uncertain time

For many organisations that had formal volunteering programmes in place prior to the pandemic, it was extremely challenging to sustain these programmes through the pandemic. Many organisations had to stop or pause the delivery of these programmes in the face of COVID-19 guidelines, while many existing volunteers who were older or with health conditions stopped volunteering in order to protect their health.

At the time of this survey (April-June 2021), volunteer-involving organisations were restarting paused programme work, and seeking to re-engage volunteers who had stopped due to COVID. This was an uncertain time, with many organisations unsure as to whether – and when – their pre-existing volunteers would be ready and willing to return, and grappling with ongoing changes in COVID-safety guidance and how to ensure a safe return for staff, volunteers and service users alike. Organisations had not all returned to their traditional premises or restarted work with their usual service user groups. While organisations were generally optimistic about being able to return to full volunteering capacity by the end of 2021, there were concerns that some volunteers had lost confidence and might not feel able to step back into their roles. Ongoing uncertainty about the direction that the pandemic might take and what this might mean for restarting paused work was also of concern. The data collection for this report was undertaken prior to the emergence of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, and it is likely that this may have posed further challenges to this process of restarting face-to-face programmes and volunteering.

9.1.2 Adapted ways of working: gains and losses

VIOs – and infrastructure organisations – made significant changes to their ways of working during the pandemic, adapting their work in order to offer remote and on-line opportunities for volunteering, for training and onboarding of volunteers, and for service delivery. Many organisations appreciated the additional flexibility that remote delivery had brought to their work, particularly in enabling them to engage with volunteers who were not able to volunteer in person, and in allowing them to tap into volunteer resources from a wider geographical area. Many organisations expected to retain aspects of this into the next phase of the pandemic and beyond.

Nevertheless, there were some clear losses associated with the shift to online/remote volunteering. Lack of access to the necessary technology and equipment has been a challenge – particularly where volunteers or service users were required to use their own equipment and connections. On-line and remote volunteering posed difficulties for some volunteers and service users with certain types of disabilities, or health conditions such as dementia. Some service users – young people in particular – were less keen to engage with online forms of service delivery. Some programmes can not be delivered effectively through online or remote approaches. Many of the VIOs responding felt that the shift to remote forms of delivery had not met the needs of their service users adequately, and expressed an acute need to return to face-to-face services as soon as it would be safe to do so.

Several organisations also stressed that in-person volunteering is important for many volunteers, for whom the social aspects of volunteering and the structure of volunteering outside of the home help to maintain motivation and enthusiasm for volunteering.

It seems likely that hybrid and flexible models that combine the best aspects of remote and in-person volunteering may emerge from the pandemic, but that this will require continued investment in digital inclusion as well a recognition that on-line models do not work well for all volunteers, programmes, and service users.

9.1.3 Volunteer wellbeing: a current concern

The intensive period that many VIOs have been through since March 2020 has taken its toll on staff and volunteer health and wellbeing. Several respondents expressed concerned about the wellbeing of volunteers, and an increased need to focus on supporting volunteer wellbeing and mental health was a clear emerging finding from the study. There were also concerns for those who have had to stop volunteering during the pandemic, and who are not currently able to access the wellbeing benefits that volunteering provides.

9.1.4 Recognising volunteers

Relatedly, several respondents felt that there could be better local and national recognition of the contribution that volunteering makes to the work of the third sector and the public sector across Scotland. They considered it to be important to find ways to formalise recognition for volunteers, and that volunteering should be recognised more explicitly across different policy areas for the role it has to play in supporting public services and community development.

9.1.5 Emerging needs: mental health and wellbeing

Survey respondents from both infrastructure organisations and VIOs found that the area of greatest emerging needs among the groups and areas where they work was mental health and wellbeing. It is clear from the responses that VIOs felt the pandemic has had a significant negative impact on mental health and on feelings of loneliness and social isolation among many communities and target groups. Organisations noted that there is not enough mental health support available to be able to respond to this, and many of them did not have the capacity to take on the level of referrals that they were seeing.

9.1.6 Informal and mutual aid volunteering: future perspectives

The volunteering response during the pandemic was characterised by tremendous engagement from members of the public, including the thousands who signed up to support Scotland Cares; who formed or joined 'mutual aid' groups set up to support communities across Scotland; or who took individual action to check in with and support neighbours or more vulnerable people within their communities. The pandemic has made clear that, when needed, people are more than ready to step in to help others in their communities – and that they don't need to be part of formal volunteering programmes and structures to feel able to do so.

Many of the 'mutual aid' groups and informal volunteering efforts that were so essential during the first COVID lockdown in particular have now reduced or stopped. Some of these groups have formalised or become part of pre-existing community groups or structures.

The initial phase of the pandemic was characterised by some degree of confusion as different groups emerged – many spontaneously – and it was challenging for infrastructure partners to track this upswell of volunteering and work out how best to coordinate and engage with it. In particular, infrastructure organisations took on extensive supporting roles to ensure that new and informal organisations would have the capacity to integrate safeguarding, COVID safe practices, and adequate coordination and support for volunteers.

An important question now facing volunteering support organisations and policy makers is how to build on this experience of informal and mutual aid volunteering – what structures to invest in, and how a similar upswell in volunteering could be more quickly supported and coordinated in the future. It would be helpful for future research to gain a more detailed overview of where mutual aid groups are still independently active, where they have ceased to operate, where they have been integrated into existing community structures, and how they and other stakeholders see their future role.

Similarly, there are important questions about the extent to which it may be possible to build on the willingness of those who signed up with mutual aid organisations, or with Scotland Cares, or who did informal volunteering during the height of the pandemic – and encourage those people to get involved in volunteering for the longer term. Comments from the survey respondents indicated that at the height of the pandemic they had seen an increase in the number of younger people/people of working age who were volunteering – but that there had been a drop off in this once people had started to get back to work and study. It is clear that there is a large pool of people who are willing to volunteer to help in a crisis situation – but perhaps less clear how we can best maintain and engage that enthusiasm over the longer term or in more 'normal' times.

9.1.7 Coordination and preparedness: building on positive changes

Many respondents noted the increased levels of coordination and partnership working around volunteering within their local areas that had emerged through the pandemic as a positive outcome. While many of the responses expressed challenges around coordination, both infrastructure organisations and VIOs suggested that coordination within local authority areas generally improved during the course of the pandemic, and that better coordination structures and working relationships could be an important legacy with the potential to support volunteering and other aspects of local response in the future. There was a hope that more collaborative ways of working and relationships that had developed during the pandemic could be retained for the future.

In particular, respondents stressed the need to ensure local leadership and coordination of response wherever possible. For example, many felt that the national 'Scotland Cares' campaign – while it had successfully engaged a very large number of potential volunteers – would have been better as a locally run campaign which could have been tailored to local needs. In the event, many people signed up to Scotland Cares who could not be deployed into volunteering roles because these had in many cases been paused, or already been filled through other efforts.

Finally, there was a positive sense that volunteering had gained in visibility and recognition as an essential part of local and national emergency planning resilience responses, where it might have been partly overlooked in the past. Building volunteering and the third sector more explicitly into future emergency preparedness and resilience planning was seen as essential, and organisations felt there were important steps to take now in terms of ensuring that volunteer readiness and capacity are better understood, and integrated into wider structures for future emergency situations.

9.1.8 Resourcing volunteering

Several VIOs noted that the COVID-19 emergency funding for third sector organisations had been a lifeline, and that the funding for digital inclusion had helped them to put necessary adaptations in place for volunteers and services users.

However, VIOs and infrastructure organisations repeatedly stressed that providing additional support and coordination for volunteers, ensuring their wellbeing, and operating hybrid on-line/in person models for volunteering and service delivery are resource-intensive activities. There was clear feedback that more dedicated funding is needed to support volunteering within volunteer-involving organisations and volunteering coordination and support capacity at the level of TSIs or local authorities. This was felt to be essential in recognition of the contribution that volunteering has made during the pandemic, and in order to ensure resilient volunteering capacities are better understood and integrated into wider groups and structures for future emergency events

In the words of one infrastructure organisation:

'The voluntary workforce and the workforce of paid staff who support volunteers and/or create the conditions that make volunteering possible experienced a prolonged period of high pressure throughout 2020 from March on, with signs of exhaustion and/or frustration at times evident due to multiple factors, yet demonstrating determination and resilience throughout. It remains important that a balanced approach to self-care and supporting others is not just promoted through messaging but that TSIs and wider third sector are resourced at a local level, and enabled to distribute resources to a range of community groups and organisations who each contribute something unique and valuable, not just 'providing services' but in fact regenerating connection, hope, identity, meaning and empowerment (CHIME), essential for a healthy world moving forward.'

9.2 Next steps

This report is testimony to the extraordinary and heroic work of organisations and individuals during an unprecedented time. It provides important evidence of the adaptability and effectiveness of volunteering in Scotland. The Scottish Government and Volunteer Scotland are reviewing all the findings from the survey. As a direct next step, findings will be shared and discussed within the Volunteering Action Plan working groups, and used to help inform and shape the development of the Scottish Government's volunteering policy, and the new Volunteering Action Plan^[15] for Scotland in particular. The findings will also help inform the wider policy response to the pandemic and lessons learned from it.