Care group volunteers on Council Land
Working together to improve support, safety and recognition
Efficiency - LEP_23 _033_LLC_TLI_11
The issue
For many years Tweed Landcare Inc and Tweed Shire Council have worked together to support the Care groups that work tirelessly to restore Council bushland. A few years ago Council commissioned an audit of all Council volunteer programs, which includes Museum, Art Gallery and Care Groups. In the Tweed the term ‘Care Groups’ has been used to capture Landcare, Dunecare, Coastcare, Rivercare and Friends of groups. The audit revealed that there were significant areas that required improvement including Work Health and Safety and volunteer recognition.
The solution
The audit led to a detailed review of Council volunteer program policies and procedures. Due to our strong partnership, our Landcare Coordinator was involved in the review of the Care Group program. We started by meeting with each Care group to review their current system and discuss the outcomes of the audit. This was also an opportunity to flag with the volunteers that there would be changes coming.
Our Landcare Coordinator then worked with Council colleagues to review and update the decade-old Care Group Procedures Manual.
Part of the of the review included identifying a volunteer management system. After a comprehensive review they decided to roll out Better Impact/ My Impact- the same system that National Parks and Wildlife Service use to manage their volunteers.
Through this process Council recognised that they needed to provide better staff support to the volunteers-- they created two new positions, a Volunteer Coordinator and a Nature Care Group Supervisor.
The impact
As the Tweed Local Landcare Coordinator I worked with my Council colleagues to create the new Nature Care Group Volunteer Handbook, customise BetterImpact and ensure the new system would work for our Care Group volunteers. I am now working with the new Volunteer Coordinator and Nature Care Group Supervisor to improve support for all of the Care groups.
During Volunteer Week Council has hosted their inaugural thank you morning tea for all Council volunteers and run a Volunteer Expo- Tweed Landcare was there to support our Council colleagues.
We are also meeting with all the Care groups, rolling out equipment and training support and planning future events to support Care group volunteers in the Tweed.
MyImpact is going to be a significant adjustment for some volunteers - moving from paper sign on sheet to a smart phone app- but it will improve oversight, increase information available (number of volunteers/ volunteer hours) and enable recognition of volunteers for their years of service.
It is fantastic to have such a significant increase in support for our Care group volunteers.
Learnings
Allow plenty of time - the set up and roll out of the new system has taken more than twelve months.
Key facts
- Collaboration
- Systems
- Recognition