A week in the life of a charity Operations Director...

One of my new years resolutions was to start writing my blog again. After a case of writers block and it never getting near the top of my to do list, I thought I would bite the bullet and start by writing about last week, which was a very varied and packed week, yet quite a typical one! A week in the life of Operations Director...!


Monday
Bank holiday - day off!

Tuesday
Completed helpline statistics monitoring for the first quarter of the year (Jan - March). We have recorded 307 contacts to our helpline (telephone, text and web chat) service in this period.

Went to the last Clayshoot sub-committee meeting at The Black Lion pub in Firbeck (before the event on 21st April) in the ground of Sandbeck Park, home to our fabulous Patrons The Earl & Countess of Scarbrough. Please check out more info about the event

http://www.weekendatlast.co.uk/?p=1309

I take one of my team to the local pub for a working lunch where we discuss her annual appraisal. We both cant believe a year has passed since we last undertook this exercise.

I have a one-to-one assessment with one of the new trainee helpline volunteers who recently completed the 5 sessions of core training for new volunteers. I ask the volunteer several questions covering areas of the helpline volunteer person specification to check her understanding. I offer feedback on her performance in the training and ask her for comments about how she found the training. I am pleased to tell her she has passed the assessment much to her delight.

Wednesday

Just after 10am its time for the cheque presentation with some of the girls from the Miss South Yorkshire contest and organiser Jill. Caroline Walsh from Doncaster won the coveted title of Miss South Yorkshire 2012, Jade Mellows was crowned Miss Sheffield and SAFE@LAST volunteer Zara became Miss Rotherham. We pose for the cheque presentation of £4306 that was raised through the competition for SAFE@LAST. All those involved have done really well again. I chuckle to myself about how I stick out like a sore thumb next to these glamorous girls.

I am pleased to see the return of my PC after it has been to our IT support company for fixing. Whilst its being installed, I continue filing the helpline training resources from a few weeks ago. One of our members of staff drop in with their little girl to hand in £3.20 she had collected and wanted it to help children that are less fortunate than herself. What a star!

I have another one-to-one assessment with a new helpline volunteer. This will make the tenth I have done out of 13 volunteers who did the training. The last three are scheduled in soon.

I finish last few preparations for our fundraising and awareness night market stall at Barkers Pool in Sheffield. Load up the car and go to Sheffield City Centre to meet a couple of volunteers who will set up the stall.

I then dash back to the office to chair a planning meeting for The BIG Sleepout, our sponsored rough sleep. This year we plan to hold one in each borough of South Yorkshire again.

After I finish work, I go home and chill out for an hour before going back to the Sheffield Night Market to volunteer on the last shift. Its great to chat with the volunteers on the stall when it gets quiet. I take it in turns to stand at the front of the stall offering free samples of our cakes that volunteers had baked to engage people in conversation. A couple of people approach the stall who read out tweet about the market! I am even more impressed now with the power of social media! I give an interview to Bungreave Community radio before packing up the stall at 9:15pm.

Thursday
First meeting of the day is the ‘Improving Lives Select Commission’ (which use to be the Scrutiny panel for children and young people) at Rotherham Town Hall. I represent the Voluntary & Community Sector on behalf of the Rotherham Children Young People & Families Consortium. The Commission is made up of primarily elected members. Items on todays agenda includes a Government consultation on Childrens Safeguarding Performance Data Set and raising the participation age regulations. I am able to make several points including highlighting how the voluntary sector can ‘reach the parts other sectors cannot’ and therefore the importance of our sector being acknowledged and covered in the consultation.


I return back to the office and catch up on emails before meeting Simon Pugh who is talking about the ‘Sports Makers’ programme which is about maintaining the olympic legacy after all the interest in sport it will generate. I talk to him about our Rhyming Ramble (sponsored walk) we are planning with poet Ian McMillan in July and also potential opportunities of including sport in future work by out Detached Street Work team.

I continue to catch up on emails and paper work.

My last appointment of the day is a cheque presentation at St Marys School in Rotherham with our trustee Christine who raised £2280 from her recent variety fundraising show STARS@LAST. I am delighted that many of the young people from Rotherham Teachers Student Academy who performed in the show also posed for the photo.

Friday
My planned meeting with the Rotherham Local Strategic Partnership Manager is cancelled so I head into the office to catch up on paperwork and emails. I prepare the volunteer helpline assessments that I have booked in for Saturday afternoon.

Visit to Doncaster Racecourse with Rachel, one of our fabulous Volunteer Ambassadors. We were very impressed with the facilities and our minds our buzzing with potential ideas of future events. We chat non-stop about some of our ideas on the drive back to the office.

Brief meeting with a small team of volunteers who are keen to lead on the SAFE@LAST eBay shop which we hope to launch in National Small Charities Week in June. The volunteers had already done a count of the first items we plan to sell via the site, our branded merchandise such as our white wrist bands that seem to be back in fashion (or so I’m told)! We talk about the aim to raise funds for the charity as well as awareness and to strengthen the brand. There are also possible links with ‘Charity Chicks’ our pop-up charity shop.

Saturday
I drive into the office to do two more one-to-one assessments of new helpline volunteers and I am pleased to tell them they have both passed. One of the volunteers brought some home made muffins in to be used at the fundraising swishing party being held on Sunday to raise money for a colleagues sponsorship target for her Kili trek.

Good idea? Bad idea?

I've had a good old read of 'Giving', the Government's Green Paper setting out a committment to encourage and develop the level of giving society offers both in terms of time (e.g. to volunteering) and of money.

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/giving-green-paper

The paper asks for ideas on what could be done, in order to help create more of a culture of giving.

One idea that I have actually formally offered in response to the consultation is the idea of utilising reward schemes that many businesses have. For example, many businesses such as supermarkets have a loyalty card scheme from Sainsburys and Nectar Points to Boots with Club Card points. I know not every customer will want to join such a scheme, or forget to carry their loyalty card with them, be an infrequent shopper to that particular establishment or have some other reason for not wanting to take advantage of the reward system. I wonder therefore, whether there would be opportunity to collect their points that would otherwise be 'lost' and then donate these points to charity or use the reward points to purchase items or claim discounts etc, (as a 'regular customer' would do for their own benefit) for charities. Businesses could either have a charity of the year type scheme or have a pool of worthy causes that could benefit.

Even if businesses did not want to operate a scheme blanketly where points are not collected by the customer, they could at least ask those who didnt want to collect points whether their points could be used in this way.

Surely with more support from the Government and communities to this idea, perhaps we could get 'buy-in' from managing directors etc to encourage this and create a trend?

Doing WHAT for free?!

I am so excited about this years National Volunteers' Week as it is such a great opportunity to shout about how brilliant volunteers are and highlight what a varied and often quite challenging roles they do.

I am pleased that for once, I've been organised - often (I have to confess), that the lead up to National Volunteers' Week has passed me by, and like some other events, the fact that nationally and locally publicity about different events starts to step up just before it, its often only then I notice that its coming up. This isn't because I don't think its important, its often about competing priorities and all too often, constantly working away on what ever presents itself in my in tray! BUT note to self, I have now made sure its firmly fixed in the annual events diary to ensure we give it the attention it deserves!

SAFE@LAST has approximately 170+ volunteers on its database! WOW!
This includes dedicated volunteers that do a range of very different things: from volunteers who bake cakes and gorgeous food for occasional events (maybe a couple of times every few months), to people who volunteer on our childrens helpline on a weekly basis, listening to children at risk through running away and hearing their stories about abuse and neglect etc.

Whilst we have a great staff team for example, who lead on prevention work (Runaway Education Officers in Rotherham and Sheffield), MISPER (Missing Persons Team Project Workers) etc SAFE@LAST would not be able to offer all the vital services that they do to vulnerable young runaways, or indeed raise as much money as we do, without the support of volunteers. Check out our volunteering web pages to get an idea about what our volunteers get up to http://www.safeatlast.org.uk/volunteering.1.htm

So...???
For Volunteers' Week we have organised a wide range of activities from street collecting (in fancy dress as superheros...because thats what our volunteers are!) through to a pamper evening thanks to The Body Shop At Home and a great 'because we're worth it: picnic in the park' for volunteers which will see us play rounders, twister and other such fun things, as well as present the volunteer of the year award. http://www.safeatlast.org.uk/Volunteersweek2010.htm

As well as all this, we also are campaigning for our volunteers to SPREAD THE WORD! and tell at least one new person EVERY DAY during Volunteers' Week about SAFE@LAST and what we do...170+ number of volunteers doing this each day for a week = a lots of new people finding out about support for runaways! Go on, spread the word!

Happy volunteering!

REFUGE@LAST

With just a week to go, all at SAFE@LAST are looking forward to showcasing our fantastic work at our national conference 'REFUGE@LAST' on Wed 5 May 2010 at Sheffield City Hall.

We will be proud to invite guest speakers and workshop presenters on a wide range of issues relating to the work we do with vulnerable young runaways who have been thrown out, abused, bullied or for other distrubing reasons.

The conference will also focus on our unique practice relating to emergency accommodation for the most vulnerable and at risk children through our refuge provision. We are now the ONLY provider of a childrens refuge for young runaways in the UK - we have the ONLY 2 BED SPACES! Our SAFEPLACE refuge that was launched in April 2007 has undergone an independent evaluation and through this conference, we hope to disseminate our good practice. We have lost count the number of times we have been asked by all sorts of organisations about our work and in particular our refuge service, so we thought what better way to give people an insight and to hopefully inspire them and share with them our learning in getting a better deal for young runaways.

2010 marks SAFE@LAST's 10th year anniversary, another good reason to share our learning.

Please consider booking on to this conference or at the very least tell others who work or volunteer in the childrens sector about it - definately NOT TO BE MISSED!

http://www.refugeatlast.org.uk

Promotion in Doncaster

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the 'Unity in the community' event, held at Doncaster Racecourse and organised by Doncaster Federation of Tenants & Residents Association.

Whilst getting up for such things (7:30am on a Saturday morning) seems a challenge, I'm really glad I went along as it was a fantastic, well organised and attended event. I didn't know what to expect as we had never been before. The hall was massive and there were dozens and dozens of organisations and agencies.

SAFE@LAST still isn't particularly well known in Doncaster, especially in comparison to our profile say in Rotherham or even Sheffield so it seemed an ideal opportunity to spread the word about our important services (helpline, MISPER project, prevention services and refuge) as well as gaining new supporters and volunteers. Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a response from our volunteers to help out - those that may have come along already had plans and to be fair, Doncaster is quite a way from many of our volunteers who live in Sheffield and Rotherham...all the more reason for recruiting a new team from Doncaster, I kept telling myself whilst getting out of bed on a saturday morning!!

It was definately worth it. Several people actually took volunteer application packs and others signed up to be on our mailing list or to receive more information about how they can get involved. I think I have finally perfected my 'pitch', even if I do say so myself, by drawing on my friends - "if you are the sort of person who would cry if you volunteered on the helpline, then perhaps helping out in the office or at our events, may be a better role for you" I tell them. It seemed to work and seemed to be at the right level and I've got lots of leads to follow up.

I've also been inspired by the work of Claire Walsh at Voluntary Action Sheffield who is currently recruiting for 'volunteer ambassadors', roles which I think would work for SAFE@LAST and help to address the difficulties of covering local stalls say in Barnsley or Doncaster, by recruiting and training local members of the community to take on these roles in their area.

Watch this space! If you would be interested in this, please let me know.

Partnership working in Sheffield

Yesterday I attended the Sheffield Integrated Domestic Abuse Service stakeholder meeting with both my SAFE@LAST and my sector representative hat on. It was interesting to hear about the developments of the service which is due to go live in April and launch in May aimed to provide an inclusive service for all who are affected by domestic abuse. The service will include a wide range of 'wrap around services' including a new 0800 helpline, a city-wide community outreach service, joint working teams involving the police, social care services and others and an education/prevention approach etc.

Whilst I've heard some of the facts and stats quoted about prevalence of domestic abuse before, the figures are still shocking and of great concern relating to just the Sheffield picture.

With the Government now having a national 'violence against women and girls' strategy and the associated TV advert campaign, domestic abuse should be on everyone's agenda and awareness more than ever before http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/violence-against-women1/ of course the challenge will be to maintain that momentum especially in times of inpending public sector spending cuts and indeed a potential change in administration with the general election.

We know that domestic abuse issues can be those that feature in a young runaways situation as they can be the victim of emotional, financial, sexual or physical abuse. It is therefore important that we continue to keep abreast of the developments that are happening and to ensure that we are valued partner in helping to shape the work and service provision.

The co-location of a social work team with other key services as part of the Integrated Domestic Abuse Service will be a significant asset. The response to the hundreds of domestic abuse incidents referred to social care services every single day where a child has been witness to or present abuse, can only be improved by this closer joint working.

Of course the challenge will be making it work and also as we look more and more to move to a 'one stop shop' approach to key issues and areas, is there a danger that what we are actually doing is developing several 'one stop shops' which are therefore not the one port of call, by definition? Whilst access should improve as the long list of numbers is reduced to one or two, as more one stop shops are created, the list of numbers increases and can still be confusing.

What is important is, at the end of the day, we must not loose sight about why go down such a road - its not about being precious about who provides the support or where that service is located, although not to recognise there are some tricky issues to iron out here is not being realistic, its about getting a better deal for people affected by these issues and making Sheffield a better place for people to live, work and play.

Volunteer Recruitment

Another busy week! Like the last few weeks, I've had just a couple of days actually in the office but have caught up on replying to most of the volunteering enquiries. We've just updated the volunteering pages on our website www.safeatlast.org.uk where a volunteer application form can be downloaded.

My focus over the next couple of weeks will be to recruit to the last few places on the next training for helpline volunteers. This will take place towards the end of April. Recruiting more volunteers to this team will help ensure we keep staffing our helpline aimed at vulernable children at risk through running away. You don't need to have any experience - you might be the person you're friends always come to when they need to offload.

Helpline volunteers tell us they really value being there for children. "Even if its a quiet duty, which can happen, I'm always happy to have given up just a few hours and take comfort in knowing we weren't needed tonight" said one helpline volunteer. Her duty partner added, "we know of course that not all kids know that we are here if they need to call, so we were really happy helping to put a mailout together for the marketing campaign whilst the phone was quiet tonight, sending posters to schools, youth groups, leisures centres etc, so they know we are here".

Children can call the helpline on 0800 335 SAFE, text SAFE+message to 60777 or webchat www.safeatlast.co.uk/chat

If you are interested in volunteering with SAFE@LAST, contact me in the office on 01909 566977, email m.smith@safeatlast.org.uk or see http://www.safeatlast.org.uk/volunteering.1.htm