Dr Megan Paull

Previous research on Volunteering in aged care settings in Western Australia: Good practice during covid-19 and beyond (Paull & Paulin 2022) and The Jacaranda Project (Paull & Paulin 2020) highlighted several issues which merited further investigation. In addition, the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety (CoA, 2021) made many recommendations to improve aged care provision in Australia including recognition of the importance of the contribution of volunteers in addressing social isolation and assistance with client activities in age care settings.

This report outlines a project involving a series of interviews and research workshops (held in person and online) over several months in 2023 and 2024 by the Project Team from Murdoch University. The project was designed to develop an understanding of the role of those who managed or coordinated volunteer activity in residential dementia care settings in Western Australia.

The outcomes of this research are set out in the following report.

Key findings in relation to managing volunteering in dementia care settings in Western Australia in 2023/24 are as follows:

Communications: Language used is important. In the interests of clarity for this report, we refer to volunteers/visitors, residents/clients and volunteer managers.

Complexity: There are several levels of cognitive impairment/dementia which require different levels of approach in managing volunteers in aged care settings.

Compliance: Government policy now requires aged care providers to have a volunteer program and for those volunteers to be well trained.

Organisational Policies: Ongoing recognition and support for volunteer managers and volunteer programs is vital.

Managing at a distance: Volunteer managers often manage at a distance from the site where volunteering takes place, adding a layer of complexity for both volunteers and managers.

First Language: Learning how to communicate with first language speakers is important and resources to assist such as advice on talking to someone with dementia which may be useful for volunteer involving organisations to offer to their volunteers in dementia care settings.

Training: For both volunteer managers and volunteers. The nature and volume of training is a delicate balance, not only to identify how much is enough, but also to meet compliance and motivational needs.

Recruiting and retaining volunteers, especially a diverse representation of volunteers, is an ongoing and problematic task for P&C committee members.

The challenge of finding volunteers and increasing the diversity of volunteers is not unique to the P&C setting nor to Australia.

Volunteering—as we know it—is in decline, with COVID-19 causing further disruption to volunteering initiatives and community building in general. Volunteering, and the decline in volunteering, are well researched but not in a P&C context, which has some unique features compared to other nonprofit and volunteer-led organisations. The most obvious disadvantage is that parents tend to move on from the P&C when their children leave the school, so length of service is limited, but a large advantage is that parents are highly motivated to be involved in their children’s lives.

We were retained by WACSSO to research the perennial question of how to maintain a diverse team of volunteers to organise, support, and engage in P&C initiatives. We have drawn on collective experience and knowledge to identify a practical and versatile framework for building a base of volunteers. We identified areas where knowledge can be shared, as well as where expertise is more sparsely distributed and knowledge-building is warranted.

Analysis of data from 238 surveys and 14 in-depth interviews using mixed methods approach, in conjunction with knowledge from literature, suggests the following:

P&Cs operate in a wide range of schools throughout Western Australia, with complex, situational challenges requiring flexible approaches.

Approaches to increasing volunteer numbers and diversity are inseparable from approaches to developing any aspect of P&C functioning and community building.

P&C situational analysis, ideation, planning, activities, and operations can be improved using a four-dimensional model developed from emerging research themes.

The model, or framework, is based on four findings:

P&Cs that embed foundational principles of nonprofit and volunteer-led organising—identified in this research as volunteering, community, purpose, objectives, culture, process, and leadership—more readily attract and retain volunteers.

Positive change occurs when individuals and groups in the community reflect on and make sense of their current situation, create options, find agency, resources and support, and act.

Initiatives by planners, doers, and relaters can all be successful, as can teamwork combining different styles.

People are drawn to and stay in P&Cs where they feel belonging, purpose, and enjoyment.

Access, quality and wellbeing in engineering Work Integrated Learning placements: Implications for equity and diversity is a mixed methods study which examines student engineers’ experiences in Work Integrated Learning (WIL) placements. The study provides insights into how to guide improvements in engineering WIL practice, particularly in relation to access, quality and wellbeing for students in equity groups.

This report outlines the study, its methods and findings that build on knowledge and insights gained from a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of international research studies and current debates on WIL access, quality and wellbeing, engineering-specific WIL placements and unpaid WIL. The review informed the analysis of data collected from three sources; institutional WIL placement information, student responses to a quantitative and qualitative online questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with students about their WIL placement experiences supplemented by interviews with university staff working in WIL-related programs in the four participating universities. The purpose was to examine student engineers’ narratives of their WIL placement experiences and provide insight into their perceptions of the ease or difficulty of access, degree of placement quality, contribution to or detraction from wellbeing, support or lack thereof; and students’ development of engineering professional identity.

Essential for the fulfilment of the organisational objectives of many in the third sector are volunteers. This report investigates the trends about the management of volunteers by comparing the results from a study (completed by Dr. Megan Paull in 1994) with one completed recently online. This initial research report is part of a larger project, which examines the management of volunteers, governance issues and social entrepreneurship issues in the volunteering sector. Volunteering WA has supported this research and encouraged member organisations to participate because the findings will enable organisations to better understand their own people and their volunteers. The need for greater accountability from donor bodies and government also provides an impetus to ensure that our member organisations are achieving their goals in an effective and caring way. The report first sets out to identify the approach used to collect information as well as explaining the main purpose of the research. The idea was to identify what changes had occurred over time. The report identifies the profile of the respondent organisations. The main part of the report identifies and analyses the main practices for the management of volunteers ranging across such important issues as recruitment, training, feedback, recognition and dismissal. Changes from the results obtained in 1994 are an essential part of this analysis. The report findings are relevant to all our members and I would recommend the report to you. I would like to thank all those who have been involved in this project. The need for organisations to learn and improve is a vital part of this type of research.

This report analyses the online survey results from three separate but interrelated issues affecting not-for-profit organisations. The first area is governance structures and practices; the second concerns funding activities and entrepreneurial endeavours; and, the third area focuses on practices affecting managers of volunteers. The intention behind this online survey was to do an initial 'mapping' of the key issues in the Western Australian not-for-profit (NFP) sector. There are significant pressures (both external and internal) being exerted in the third sector in relation to notions of transparency, accountability and value-for-money, These research outcomes will now be followed up by more detailed qualitative case study research to investigate these issues fully. These initial findings are, therefore, exploratory in nature.