Volunteers & Professionals

Volunteers can make a significant difference to families with young children and bring valuable skills that can validate or complement the skill of the parents. Volunteers are also well placed to help parents build links with community organisations, groups and services in their local areas.

Volunteers can offer friendly informal support to parents through home visiting, provide social support and build community connectedness which creates opportunities to prevent small difficulties from growing into larger problems.

Good Beginnings provides many opportunities for volunteers to join us in running the Good Beginnings program. These include:

Volunteer home visiting (providing support to mums and dads in their home)

Remember that desperate feeling you sometimes had as new parent? How little problems seemed so big? And how good it was to have someone to talk to who understood? Not all new parents are lucky enough to have someone around who can help. Perhaps you could fill the gap!

Good Beginnings is always looking for volunteers who can spend a little time supporting a new parent in your community. If you are a parent or grandparent who can spend some time, this is a great opportunity to provide encouragement and support when it is most needed.

Volunteering in the community

Examples of activities currently running:

• Assisting the facilitator and parents at parenting groups
  
  
• Assisting the facilitator, parents and children at playgroups
  
  
• Running information sessions for parents in hospitals
  
  
• Participate in community awareness projects for example, hand out balloons or paint faces when Good Beginnings has a stall at a local fete

Administration support

Field volunteers need support for communication, bookkeeping; reporting and administration - each dollar saved in the office means more help for Australia's children

Fundraising

Assistance in planning event organisation and all forms of fund raising is always needed

What volunteers say:

"Above all, the professionalism of the program. It has excellent protocols/procedures to ensure volunteers are supported and clients are respected"

"The program measures outcomes, eg. the intervention that has occurred with the family has enabled the family to make positive changes in their lives, that makes me proud"

"The training program is comprehensive and that makes me feel confident"

"I have been very impressed with the follow-up by the coordinator to families and volunteers, it is immediate and thorough, this is sometimes missing from other community organisations which do not always have the capacity to do this effectively"

"I'm just glad to be doing something so positive."

Professionals who volunteer

Professional support is provided to Good Beginnings Australia in areas of marketing, graphic design, computer maintenance, expert clinical advice, research support and fundraising. If you are interested in providing assistance, please nationaloffice@goodbeginnings.net.au.