National Volunteers' Week - Partners of Prisoners

With National Volunteers’ Week just beginning, we asked our Volunteer Coordinator, Kendra to tell us a bit more about volunteering for POPS and the benefits of getting involved.

‘As the Volunteer Coordinator at POPS it is my privilege and honour to work with our excellent and talented team of volunteers across the organisation. It seems fitting that during National Volunteers’ Week we take the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate their tireless commitment and the essential contribution they make to many services across POPS.

The levels of passion, motivation and professionalism among our volunteers never ceases to impress me and their willingness to develop within their roles is part of what makes POPS’ volunteers such a valuable part of our organisation. Currently we have almost 100 volunteers working across projects including the Offender’s Family Helpline, Court Support & Prison Visitor Centres.

All volunteers who join POPS complete training and take part in a full induction; we also encourage our volunteers to move around the organisation in order to further develop their skills. Our volunteers are included in organisational development news and have the opportunity to apply for all internal vacancies.

Why Volunteering?

People chose to volunteer for many reasons and the rewards can differ for individuals. Some people are looking to build their employability skills, experience or take part in work that enhances their studies. Others are simply looking for a way to ‘give something back’, use spare time in a productive and meaningful way or perhaps even to make new friends. Sometimes people chose to volunteer due to their own personal experiences; at POPS many family members have gone on to volunteer with us and can often offer a unique insight and provide excellent support to others.

Volunteering in the right position can fulfil all these things and also provide you with a great reference for future employers. It can also enable people to see what life is like for others and can help shape us all into more empathetic and supportive community.

What makes a good volunteer?

There are many things that we can train our volunteers in, such as knowledge of issues, procedures, multi-agency working, communicating effectively. We need our volunteers to bring reliability, motivation and genuine desire to understand and support families.

An excellent volunteer for us isn’t necessarily someone who knows everything, but someone who is compassionate and can be relied upon by families accessing our services. Often people who have first-hand experience of supporting a loved one throughout a sentence can make excellent volunteers themselves as they have lived through some of issues that families can encounter.

How you can get involved

If you are based in the Northwest of England and are interested in finding out more about volunteering with us then contact us on volunteer@partnersofprisoners.co.uk.

We hold regular volunteer open evenings at our head office in Manchester and this can be an ideal opportunity to meet with us and find out about all the different volunteering roles within POPS.’