Volunteer leaders in Action! Not Alone in the work: Providing Meaningful & Accessible Volunteer Support & Supervision
How we support volunteers in their roles can really differ, depending on the type of work they're doing and the responsibilities they have. In this episode of Volunteer Leaders in Action, I talk with Julie Ugoretz, a social worker living in Brooklyn and working in NYC at SAGE, where they manage a Friendly Visitor Program for LGBTQ+ elders. I heard Julie speak at a webinar over the summer, and was so impressed with the robust and intentional training, support and supervision they offer to volunteers - I knew I wanted talk more with Julie about their approach.
In this rich conversation we learn how Julie approaches setting volunteers up for success, and how her background in social work helps her do that. Julie and her team do this by:
making sure that volunteers are "not alone in the work" even though they see elders 1:1 in their homes.
preparing volunteers well with a robust full-day training. Training involves important historical and contextual considerations, as well as a slew of critical skills like empathy building, listening skills, role plays, and hearing from a current volunteer.
providing support early on in volunteer matches. Julie and her team connect with the client and the volunteer by phone after the first visit.
We also learn about a variety of ways that support and supervision are offered to volunteers – from peer supervision meetings, which are a core of the program, to opportunities for 1:1 check-ins when volunteers need additional support from staff, and encouraging peer support between volunteers. The fact that there's a lot of longevity with the volunteers in the program, and that many of them continue to attend peer supervision meetings, even after the first year with the program (when meetings are mandatory) is a great sign of the value of these supervision opportunities.
A couple factors that work well during team check-ins:
Provide broad-open-ended questions to check-in.
What's going on?
What's going well
Is there anything that concerns you with your match?
Provide opportunities for skill-building on specific topics.
Encourage volunteers to use each other as resources – Julie shared that volunteers have "gone through it" in a way that they haven't as a staff supervisor.
Build in fun, connection and celebration. The team gathers for holiday and pride parties, and special events like drag bingo – all of which offer opportunities for volunteers and clients to make informal, friendly connections.
Julie also shares some valuable guidance about how she captures volunteer hours – a notoriously tricky task for volunteer managers.
Our session wraps up with a beautiful reflection from Julie about the true value of each hour a volunteer contributes. "We live in a world where a lot of the focus can be on numbers – the number of matches, how many hours of volunteer service are you able to show. Every volunteer interaction is special and meaningful. I hope folks can not get swept away by the numbers. [In my program] each match is 2 people who are visiting every week – how significant is every single one of those relationships!"
Julie Ugoretz (they or she pronouns), is a social worker living in Brooklyn and working in NYC at SAGE, where they manage a Friendly Visitor Program for LGBTQ+ elders. Julie supervises more than 80 current volunteer-participant matches, training volunteers, orienting new participants, and providing ongoing volunteer support and supervision. Julie is passionate about serving LGBTQ+ elders, fostering social connectedness, and creating community amongst volunteers. You can connect with Julie by email or on LinkedIn.