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If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.
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Tuesday Feb 17, 2009
Choose Leisure Wear and Matching Luggage.
I have to sort something out that has been niggling me a little bit: for someone who writes a blog on 'volunteering', I hardly do any. Twice a week at my local community radio station has been my entire diet of voluntary action since returning to Sheffield early last month.
I hope that doesn't make me some kind of fraud: I certainly tried not to pretend I was anything else but a low-life student. I like volunteering, and I like writing about it too, but I am not saying that I am some archetypal volunteer demi-god.
I have been looking for some new volunteer opportunities though, especially ones that go through my student union at Sheffield University. Especially ones that will help me get through my Law course at Sheffield University.
Unfortunately an opportunity again fell through this week and due to repeated communication failure between me and the organisation I have decided to dolefully give up hope of volunteering there.
However I am going to look for any opportunities teaching English to non-speakers and any one day activities coming up in Sheffield. I'll let you know how it goes.
Oh, and before I go – what about CRB checks? Why do we have to have a different CRB check for each organisation we volunteer or work for? Could we not have one over-arching CRB check which cleared us for a year?
Someone I tried to volunteer with through WWOOF – Willing Workers On Organic Farms – likened the need for so many CRB checks as a stealth tax.
At the cost of £36 each, someone is benefiting somewhere, and it is also so frustrating when you want to take part in something short-notice but then have to wait 4 weeks for your CRB to come through.
Next update should be about online volunteering, including Wikipedia and Youtube.
Posted by Harry
( 1:20 AM )
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Having a criminal record does not preclude you from volunteering, and different previous criminal activity may preclude you from different volunteering activities. Therefore it is totally correct that you should be judged on the particulars of each volunteering opportunity rather than being "cleared" (or not) for all volunteering.
CRB disclosures should be free to volunteers: http://www.crb.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=289&qid=463. And even if the organisation can not get them for free (because they use an umbrella body), a good volunteering organisation should operate a zero-cost volunteering policy and refund expenses incurred through volunteering.
It's also worth ask confirming why you need a CRB. CRBs are legally only required when you have significant access to children or vulnerable adults. Organisations shouldn't be requiring CRBs simply because you may come into contact with young people, indeed they may well be breaking the law by requesting CRBs when they do not meet the required criteria. Sadly, no-one wants to be the person who deemed a CRB disclosure unncessary on the basis that it doesn't play well with certain elements of the media.
It's worth bearing in mind that the Independent Safeguarding Authority will eventually take over decision-making as to who can work with children and vulnerable adults, and part of that process is to prevent the repetition of CRBs (and also limit CRBs to only as required). More information: http://www.isa-gov.org.uk
And finally, as 75% of child abuse is committed by someone with no known previous history of abuse, a CRB alone would only prevent 1 in 4 cases. That's not to say it's not important, but good organisations will have proper safe systems of training and working practice and a CRB should be the final defence not the first.
Olly
Posted by Olly on February 17, 2009 at 07:30 PM GMT+00:00 #
On an Enhanced Disclosure they can check 5 things: Police records, information from the list helf under the Education Act 2002, Protection of Children Act list information, Protection of Vunerable Adults list information and finally other relevant information disclosed at the Chief police officer's discretion.
The only amount judging happens when the volunteer organisation decides which of these 5 categories they are going to check.
So what would be wrong with having one CRB checking all 5, and then using that check for other organisations for a certain time-limit?
I have two Enhanced Disclosures by the side of my computer right now, one from Oct 2008 where they checked everything bar the Vunerable Adults list, and one which I had to obtain one month later which checked all 5 categories. But now I still have to apply again now that I want to work with a different org in Sheffield.
I put my hand up to not knowing that the CRB did not charge for volunteers though. However there is still a serious amount of bureaucracy that could be cut out by having one CRB check usable for all agencies.
You would also cut out the waiting time of around 3-4 weeks which can be really frustrating particularly for short term events, and when you have a recent CRB at home anyway.
I'm not saying do away with CRBs: I think it's important to check previous convictions. I volunteered and stayed with children in Austria last summer and there were no checks made whatsoever, on me or any other volunteer. That was almost scarily slack. I can't however believe in a system which creates so much extra work for itself and for volunteers.
Posted by Harry on February 17, 2009 at 11:16 PM GMT+00:00 #
What you are talking about is portability. There are currently options for portability of existing CRBs, one organisation can request a copy of a CRB from another organisation and if that second organisation is prepared to provide it that is OK (there is an issue of liability). However from an organisation's point of view, that's often as complicated at getting a new CRB.
Most organisations who do do portability have quite a short time-frame of when portability is acceptable (say three months). After that, a new CRB will be required to ensure that any recent criminal activity is captured (information that is usually far more useful than historical details).
What I was referring to was the discretion organisations have when deciding whether to take someone on based on information on their CRB. The "banned" lists are the easy bit, it's what is stored on a criminal record that often provides the more challenging. Employers still have legal obligations (and voluntary organisations a moral responsibility) under the Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation not to simply bar people based on the fact they have a criminal record. Therefore once they are presented with that information there needs to be a decision made on agreed principles - which is why the CRB service requires all organisations that undertake CRBs to have a written policy on employing ex-offenders.
All that said, I'm not defending the system and don't disagree with your view that the CRB process is unncessarily complicated (particularly when many people work/volunteer in multiple organisations).
It's for that reason the system is changing and the introduction of the ISA that will try and tackle both these issues. By registering employers/volunteers they can be continually assessed, so any intelligence from the police can immediately be acted upon. It also removes the issue of people making decisions based on character / friendship. The concern is that the ISA will have to have a good understanding of the role the person is applying for, so that they can make a fair decision and we don't end up with a system of presumed exclusion.
Olly
Posted by Olly on February 18, 2009 at 09:57 AM GMT+00:00 #
I'm on the MA Magazine Journalism course at Sheffield, and we're putting together a project on volunteering in South Yorkshire, and more specifically how people might be put off by having to have CRB checks. I'd love to have a chat with you about it over the next few days if you've got any spare time.
Please drop me a line to let me know if you're interested :)
Cheers
Helen Storey jop08hs @shef.ac.uk
Posted by Helen Storey on February 26, 2009 at 05:46 PM GMT+00:00 #