1. A skilled coordinator
The lynchpin of your programme.
A skilled coordinator will:
- Attract, engage, train, supervise and retain volunteers
- Facilitate processes that enable volunteers to engage with vulnerable pregnant women and their partners
- Build relationships with and between professionals and other local services.
2. All costs fully covered
Make sure your costs include:
- A proper operational base
- Staff to coordinate, train and supervise your volunteers
- Marketing resources
- Volunteer out of pocket expenses
- Data systems etc.
A guide to working out the costs of your programme can be found here.
3. Strong organisational leadership
Your programme should be led by an organisation with a core purpose of nurturing grass-roots community involvement. This is most likely to be a local charity or social enterprise that is respected by local people and has community development at the heart of its agenda.
4. Realistic timescales
A common mistake is allowing insufficient lead-in time for setting up your programme. This usually takes about a year.
Set key timescales and dates that include the following:
- Establishing and equipping an operational base
- Recruiting core delivery staff
- Writing your volunteer role outlines
- Preparing your parent engagement plan and marketing strategy
- Designing your volunteer training programme
- Organising volunteer resources and home visiting tools
- Writing and ratifying your core policies and procedures
- Setting up management systems for volunteers recruited and parents supported
- Writing your volunteer handbook
- Finalising your programme budget and fundraising strategy
- Agreeing your quality monitoring, data collection system and evaluation strategy
- Recruiting, selecting and inducting your first cohort of volunteers.
5. 'Just enough' data collection
Tracking impact is important, but data collection can be intrusive and burdensome for volunteers and parents. Refer to your Theory of Change and consider what impacts can be meaningfully measured and how this data can be collected with as light a touch as possible. See further information in Reviewing and improving your programme.
Theory of Change Parents1st
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6. The support of local leaders for the six key principles
Leaders in commissioning and provider organisations should model the strengths-based, relational and collaborative working required to enable your programme to succeed.