Local Volunteer Centres hit quality mark

A partnership of Volunteer Centres (VCs) in Greater Manchester has recently achieved the Volunteering England quality standard (VCQA) for its partner centres in Bury, Oldham, Salford, Tameside and Trafford.
The VCQA is a nationally-recognised quality system requiring VCs to submit a portfolio of evidence every three years demonstrating how they continue to carry out the following core functions to a nationally-recognised standard:
• Marketing volunteering;
• Good practice support for organisations;
• Brokering people into volunteering opportunities;
• Working with organisations to develop new volunteering opportunities;
• Campaigning and policy response on volunteering issues;
• Strategic development of volunteering.
The process was supported by Megan Ohri, Volunteering Development Officer of the Volunteering Greater Manchester project, who steered the partners through agreeing principles for joint working, aligning policies and procedures to ensure a consistent quality and standard of service, and collating and submitting the necessary documentation.
As with all partnership working, this process was not without its challenges. But by the end, all partners reported the benefits of getting to know and trust each other, of sharing the workload, and of being able to share each other’s best practices.
David Sharples, Volunteer Centre Manager at Voluntary Action Oldham said: “It was great to be able to work in partnership with four other Volunteer Centres as we all worked towards gaining Volunteering England’s accreditation. Apart from the obvious support that this gave us all it has strengthened individual partnerships and understanding between managers.”

Further details from: Megan Ohri, Development Officer, Volunteering Greater Manchester, 0161 787 7795 ext 203, megan.ohri@salfordcvs.co.uk.