This document discusses volunteering in social care in the UK, including definitions of volunteering, types of volunteering organizations, and the role of volunteering in health and social care. It notes that volunteering is an unpaid activity that benefits others, and outlines government policies that aim to promote volunteering in health and social care. The document also examines informal interpreting in healthcare settings, finding that many immigrants use family members, including children, to interpret due to lack of formal interpretation services.

1. Volunteering in Social
Care
John Eversley and Belinda Pratten
ppre CIC

2. About ppre
• Set up January 2003
• Public policy research, education and
consultancy
• Partnerships with universities, NGOs
• Range of projects and methods
– Quantitative research using administrative data
– ‘Emancipatory’ research
– E.g. Informal and ad hoc Interpreters

3. Definitions of volunteering 1
United Nations: 3 defining characteristics
• Activity not undertaken for financial reward
• Activity undertaken voluntarily (free will)
• Activity of benefit to someone else or society
Main types of activity
– Mutual aid or self help;
– Philanthropy or service to others
– Participation or civic engagement
– Advocacy or campaigning

4. Definitions of volunteering 2
United Kingdom: no common definition, broadly:
• ‘an unpaid activity where someone gives their
help to an organisation or an individual to whom
they are not related.’ (Volunteering England)
UK Citizenship Survey
• Formal volunteering: unpaid help given as part of a
group, club or organisation...
• Informal volunteering: unpaid help given as an
individual to someone who is not a relative

5. Formal volunteering by
organisation
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

6. The voluntary principle
• Must be freely chosen, ‘no strings attached’
• Must be distinct from paid work, not a
substitute for it
• Issues re benefit / minimum wage entitlements
and contractual obligations – that may also
impact on accreditation
• Volunteering in health and social care – not a
cheap option

7. Volunteering in health and
social care
Coalition Government policy:
“Our vision is of a society in which social action
and reciprocity are the norm and where
volunteering is encouraged, promoted and
supported because it has the power to
enhance quality; reduce inequality; or improve
outcomes in health, public health and social
care.”
Department of Health, 2011, Strategic vision for volunteering

8. Health and Social Care
Volunteering Fund
• Set up in November 2010 to help ‘recruit, support
and celebrate volunteers and volunteering’
• Grants to support projects that help meet
government objectives in relation to:
– Empowering patients
– Improving individual and community health outcomes
– Improving health and social care
• Evaluation of these projects will be used to
strengthen the evidence-base on volunteering in
health and social care

9. Carers
• ‘Any unpaid help, looking after or supporting
family members, friends, neighbours or others
because of long-term physical or mental ill-health
or disability or problems related to old age’
• A continuum, from making or receiving a phone
call – “caring about” - through to living with
someone and giving them support twenty-four
hours a day – “caring for”
• Who Cares? Women, BME Communities, poorer
people, ‘the pivot generation’
• 4.3m , 2001 , 5.5m by 2030

10. Informal and ad hoc
interpreters Context:
• Social: demography e.g. 230 languages in
London
• Political: attitudes to Minority languages
• Legal: No ‘Official’ language in England; right
to Interpreter; right to healthcare
• Ethical: use of children as interpreters

11. Informal and ad hoc
interpreters Context:
• Economic; the costs and benefits of (not)
having paid, trained mediators or bilingual
professionals; who pays for it
• Technical: models and standards of mediation;
How it is organised

12. Informal and ad hoc
interpreters
• Bangladeshi
– 29/50 patients had used informal or ad hoc
interpreter
– 8/50 used<under 18
– Felt more comfortable with and more reliable
• Turkish
– 17/27 use an interpreter: pd/informal depends on
availability and level of concern with respect to
their health

13. Findings: UK Informal and
ad hoc interpreters
• Bangladeshi
– 41/50 had done it
– 18 < 18 years old:
embarrassment, pressure, missing school
• Turkish
– 36/53 had done it
– 16 < 18 years old: responsibility incl
reassurance, pressure lack of vocabulary and
training; not being believed