How can you recruit volunteers to help the homeless?

Recruitment for any position, be it paid or voluntary, often requires a thorough job analysis. As an employer, you needed to ask yourself, " What is the current human resource gap or need in the organisation, and how can it be filled?" The level of need determines the calibre of personnel you will need to fill the gap. Does the gap require a junior professional, or a mid-level manager, or a senior manager? Quite often than not, junior professionals and some mid-level career professionals are enthusiastic about volunteering because they are within the age-group that some people and l may describe as the sunrise group: professionals who are yet exploring the world and have less pressing private responsibilities.

I must say a value shown to the the volunteer can make him to decide for participation. Value can be in terms of payment or appreciation certificates or any other way of benefits for volunteer,

Offer workshops to train volunteers on effective and empathetic interactions with homeless individuals. also, ensure that volunteers have a positive and fulfilling experience by creating a supportive and inclusive environment. Regularly seek feedback and make adjustments to improve the volunteer program.

In the situation with the homeless, from my point of view, very clear coordination with social services and the police is needed. Therefore, I would add to the goals a clear division of powers and areas of responsibility. Unfortunately, volunteers cannot resolve some issues with documents or accommodation. Therefore, it is important to answer the question “What can volunteers do effectively in this situation?”

It is important to consider time of day and days of the weeks since a lot of your volunteers will either be helping before / after work or they will be juggling child care and other responsibilities. Consider how much support and flexibility your own volunteers will be offered. Many who can’t work will volunteer - but they may have a health reason for not working - so make sure you allow for more capacity for sickness/ absence than you would with an employee.

As said earlier, once you have conducted your job analysis and identified a human resource gap, you design a job description with a clear specification of the overall purpose of the position, key duties and responsibilities, the nature of the person you need for the role in terms of experience, educational qualifications, and person attributes. Additionally, you specify the duration of the role, commencement of the position, work arrangements, and entitlements. Then, you choose an appropriate medium for announcing the job vacancy. The medium of announcement should be appropriate and relevant to the context, requiring that you ask yourself, "What do people often use for accessing public information in this locality?" Radios?

One of the ways I have been successful in gaining volunteers is through the leveraging of professional organizations. In many cases professional organizations are seeking opportunities to make impacts in their local communities and are willing to provide volunteers for well organized events. Additionally, fostering a good network with these organizations alos leads to sustained volunteer pools.

Be sure to follow the agreed process in your organisation. For example C of E churches these days have strict safe recruitment requirements even for volunteers. Role descriptions, DBS checks and safeguarding etc all non negotiable. This does put some people off. But if we all agree that the vulnerable people we serve need to be supported in a safe environment then we should all agree to recruit volunteers safely.

From another perspective, the third step in recruitment after announcing the job vacancy is to review the documents of the applicants. You read through their cover letters and resumes, ensuring that they are a perfect match for the position in question. Then, you shortlist the ones that have met the selection criteria for interviews, either written or oral or both. But, sometimes, l don't rely on CVs a lot. I give equal opportunities to all applicants to do a test, because some people are specialists in making CVs despite not having substance in their minds. For some people live in contexts where there are limited jobs and thus their exposure to CV writing is limited. So, judging someone from a CV is a form of negative discrimination.

Next, as the first contributer has already stated, you motivate your employees or volunteers to get the best results and dedication to their work and the organisation. This requires you to understand human and organisational behaviour. You should know the likes and dislikes of various age groups and people with various intellectual capacities and, then, handle them appropriately. Quite often, brilliant and hardworking teammates do not like micro- management. They get self-fulfilment through working independently with limited supervision. However, you balance your reward to promote team work.

Don’t forget succession planning and growth mindset as part of the interest for the job. Your more experienced volunteers may enjoy the additional responsibility of training new ones or being asked to help make things work better, bringing new ideas etc.

When working with people who are homeless, focus on the hierarchy of needs. Ask rather than advise. What do they need? What would make them feel safer? Then do that very thing. Trust that people know what they need. Food, water, shelter, safety, trust, consistency - these things come first. It’s difficult to consider social engagement or job applications/proficiencies if you don’t know where you’re sleeping at night and are living in survival mode. Help people feel safe and feel that their lives are sustainable, and then they can take steps themselves. Building trust in small, incremental ways is incredibly meaningful. Despite claims to the contrary, police/carceral interventions are incongruent with helping the vulnerable.

From my point of view, working with the homeless requires special skills of volunteers. Homeless people often smell bad, are uncooperative, and behave antisocially. Volunteers for such a project must have a truly big heart. In addition, it is imperative to involve in volunteer work those who themselves have a similar background. We don't think much about the fact that homeless people given a second chance can be volunteers themselves.

Working with people means building relationships. If possible try to have the same volunteer on the same ‘shift’ regularly so that they are more likely to see the same clients and build rapport with them. Unless we make friends and understand people we will limit how much we can help and support. Consider the mutual support that clients can give one another. A simple ‘opt in’ WhatsApp for clients could connect them so people can ask questions and share information, encourage each other, and it gives you a way to remind everyone ‘event x today pop in at 10am’ that’s sort of thing.