1. Determinants of motivation and commitment amongst
Volunteer care-givers. A survey of OVC care-givers
In the Diocese of Kumbo; North West Province
IAS 2008 • August, 2008
Presented by
Kenneth Muko
CRS Cameroon
Catholic Relief Services
2. IAS • August 6, 2008
Rationale for Study
•High rates of volunteer attrition
•Care programs for OVC increasingly use volunteers
•Motivating volunteers is vital to high retention rates
and volunteer commitment
•Retention important to
– Program quality through continuity of services
– Efficient use of financial resources
3. IAS • August 6, 2008
Strategies to increase
motivation
• Training and working materials
• Incentives (e.g. food, transportation allowance)
• Access to credit and income generating activities
• Recognition by community
• “Caring for the caregiver” activities
• Regular supportive supervision
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What keeps volunteers motivated?
2. How can volunteerism be measured?
4. IAS • August 6, 2008
Study Methods
• What keeps volunteers motivated?
• Focus group discussions to finalize hypothesis
– Two groups of OVC Volunteers(10/group)
• A questionnaires(structure and unstructured
questions)
– Administered to 130 OVC volunteers
2. How can volunteerism be measured?
• Volunteer Commitment Score (VCS) was
designed and tested
5. IAS • August 6, 2008
Example of VCS
Kumbo OVC Volunteer Commitment & performance Score (VCS)
Variable
Score
0 1 2 3 4 5
Length of time ever worked as a volunteer NA Between 2
months to 1
year
Between 1
year to 2 years
Between 2
years 3 years
3 years and
more
NA
Number of formal visits per child per month (sum of
number of visits carried out / number of formal visits
expected to be carried out in a given month).
0 0.1 – 1.0 1.1 – 2.0 2.1 – 3.0 3.1 or more NA
Percentage of children volunteer saw in one month
(number of children seen irrespective of location / total
number of children assigned to volunteer in a given
month)
0 0.1 -29.9 30 – 49.9 50 – 59.9 60 -69.9 70 and
more
Supervisor’s score of level of connectedness with the
orphan (score on 5)
0 -0.9 1.0 – 1.9 2.0 – 2.9 3.0- 3.9 4.0 -4.9 5.0
Minimum Score = 1 Maximum Score = 18
NA: Not applicable
6. IAS • August 6, 2008
What keeps volunteers
motivated?
Statistically significant factors related to high
volunteer commitment:
1. Previous experience of caring for orphans
2. Positive quality of the volunteer’s childhood
3. Higher levels of education
4. Regular supervision with feedback
5. Proximity to OVC
Factors not predictive of commitment
Religiosity, Gender, Biological Relationship, Economic status
7. IAS • August 6, 2008
Next Steps:
IMPLICATIONS
FOR PRACTICE
• Volunteer selection criteria
should include:
- prior experience
- level of education
• Supervision should be
participatory
• Criteria for commitment
should be a combination of
indicators
FOR RESEARCH
• Validate VCS tool
• How do OVC perceive
volunteer commitment
• Why did volunteers leave;
challenges?
Hello everyone, I very pleased to be here to day and honored to be speaking sitting with a panel of made up of reputable and knowledgeable persons as we find here today . I will be presenting the results of a study we carried in Cameroon to find out some of the things that motivate volunteers providing care and support services to Orphans and Children made Vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in Cameroon.
CRS supports 6,700 of these children. The CRS OVC programs provide comprehensive care and support services using volunteers as the primary care givers.
Across Africa, OVC care programs like those CRS is implementing increasingly make use of volunteers because it is cheaper, sustainable and encourages community ownership.Unfortunately volunteerism in OVC program is characterized by high rates of attrition. Motivating volunteers is vital to high retention rates and commitment. Retention is important to program quality through continuity of services and efficient use of financial resources.
PAUSE
Current OVC programs use a combination of some of the following strategies to increase motivation. These include:training and working materials,
incentives such as food transportation allowance, facilitation of access to credit and income generating activities, various forms of recognition by community,
“Caring for the caregiver” activities and regular supportive supervision . But then the question as to whether these strategies work has not been answered.There isnt sufficient information out there to show that these strategies work.
We had two research questions for this study: The first question was to find out what keeps the volunteers motivated and well as how volunteerism can be measured, given that there is no gold standard for measuring volunteerism.
In order to find out what motivates volunteers we conducted focus group discussions with two groups of volunteers from which we were able to refine some hypothesis. This enabled us to design questionnaires which were administered to all volunteer care givers in the project.We were able to administer these to 130.
In order to measure volunteerism we designed a tool for which we called the Volunteer Commitments Score(VCS)
This slide shows the VCS tool. I apologize for the small characters
It is a 5-point scale
Minimum aggregate score: 1
Maximum aggregate score: 18
Hypothesis: Higher aggregate scores = increased volunteer commitment
For this survey we used a cut of point of 13 for commitment which was equivalent to the cut off point used by project staff for assessing volunteers commitment.
For those in the audience with clinical background you may be familiar with a similar tool; the Bishop’s score which is used by O and G practitioners to predict when a pregnant mother will give birth. Our VCS tool was adapted from the widely used Bishop’s score
Factors that were found to be related to high commitment included:
Previous experience of caring for orphans ;volunteers who had been involved in caring for OVC before joining the project had higher commitment scores,
A positive quality of the volunteer’s childhood, volunteers who did not experience negative shocks during their childhood
Higher levels of education; those with higher levels of education also had higher commitment scores
Regular supervision with feedback and Proximity to OVC I.e the closer the volunteer is to the OVC, the higher the commitment score.
Other important but not statistically significant factors included the way the community perceived the work of the volunteers as well as appreciation from the community and the children.
In addition to the poster outside which has more details, we have a full report in this book.
Funding for this research was provided by CRS though its xx, we are grateful for this ,actually CRS is one of the organisations that has made great strides towards meeting up with the Sydney Declaration by increasingly putting more funds for M and E. I also want to than the volunteers for the tremendous work they are doing,for participating in this study and my colleagues Drs. Leslie Chingang and Ruth Kornfeild.
Mme Co chair please permit me acknowledge the presence of the perm sec of Cameroon’s AIDS Control Committee .Dr Elat, thanks sir for coming
In addition to the poster outside which has more details, we have a full report in this book.
Funding for this research was provided by CRS though its xx, we are grateful for this ,actually CRS is one of the organisations that has made great strides towards meeting up with the Sydney Declaration by increasingly putting more funds for M and E. I also want to than the volunteers for the tremendous work they are doing,for participating in this study and my colleagues Drs. Leslie Chingang and Ruth Kornfeild.
Mme Co chair please permit me acknowledge the presence of the perm sec of Cameroon’s AIDS Control Committee .Dr Elat, thanks sir for coming