InVolvE

Across Europe, citizens of all ages offer their time, talents and energy to contribute positively to community development through volunteering in civil society organizations, youth clubs, hospitals, schools, sports clubs, etc. Involvement of millions of people gives an example of volunteering as an expression of civic participation that strengthens common European values, such as solidarity and openness. The development and care of the involvement of citizens irrespective of their age, religion or sex, and providing volunteers with the ability to effectively fulfill their roles, duties and tasks is the responsibility of organizations using their services.

In addition to the enormous potential, volunteering also shows some particular difficulties and problems that generally do not pay sufficient attention to training organizations and providers.

These are among others:

Fading motivation (over time or in problematic situations)
Lack of support related to mental stress, overload at work, etc.
Lack of competence related to conflict resolution (with assistants, other volunteers or specialists)

Often, the staff members of an organization that engage volunteers in describing related soft skills refer to 'intuition’ or 'learning by doing’. Nevertheless, it is possible to teach and train these skills and awareness in order to:

• facilitating joint work in a responsive way and ensuring the good of the volunteer,
• dealing with emotionally sensitive or conflict sensitive situations

The overall objective of the project is to exchange best practices and knowledge about the curriculum, standards and tools for volunteer training (including staff training) so that partners can change their training activities, develop soft skills training in academic programs and strengthen the institution’s performance.