What can I do to get help?

Excellent idea. Open-ended offers to volunteer are rare because people are wary of commitments they may not be able to fulfil

Good suggestions trisher. I've. been wondering whether a retired s.w/h.v. someone with a background in supervision would be prepared to volunteer a few hours a week.

grannyactivist as you are having real problems and seem to have covered many of the things I would have suggested I think you may need to take a closer look at how you are operating. It may be that if you were able to offer some supervison and training by a qualified person you could take on case workers who needed training and practical experience, say from social work/health worker course. You might need to offer that qualified person a wage for the hours they do but I think it would be beneficial in the long run. It sounds as if you are just managing to keep things running at the moment and are really putting yourself under stress. Please take good care of yourself. I wonder have you posted on Do-it? do-it.org . One other thing you could do is advertise for someone to take over as a volunteer co-ordinator and hand the problem over to them, sometimes a new set of eyes come up with solutions. Good luck

It might be worth contacting PROBUS , a professonal gentleman's club. Many of the members seek volunteering opportunities in their community.

Being totally honest I wonder if potential volunteers just do not want the level of commitment required of a caseworker. Having retired from a demanding professional job I am happy volunteering in a support role but do not want any significant responsibility. It may be that you need to consider paying employees for posts where there is significant responsibility.

Grannyactivist. Do you have a local U3a.many experienced older people with time to spare perhaps.

Grannyactivist does the person you are seeking need to live nearby, or is the form filling and documentation gathering something that could be done remotely by someone from elsewhere in the country working from home with good IT systems? Would this be an avenue that you could explore?

You mention liaising with the local Mental Health Team. Have you asked them if they would put a poster up at work for you? I'm a retired registered mental health nurse and would have helped but I live in Nottinghamshire. RMHN's wouldn't be at all put off by any of the problems you mention. Some of the nurses, health care assistants and student nurses may have a few hours to spare. When I was a student nurse (many years ago) I worked part time and volunteered with lots of different organisations whilst studying as a way of gaining more experience. It might be worth a try. Also, find out which universities train mental health nurses or social workers and put a poster up there. My boyfriend at the time (not any longer) was a social work student and he did the same.

My DD works for a homeless charity. They have a tiny paid staff - basically part-time wages for more than full time jobs! - and a few volunteers. My DD was originally a volunteer and got involved through a weekly event to provide food for homeless and low income people. That attracted quite a few volunteers. They had a charity shop too, which brought in volunteers - but also required quite a lot of volunteers, so it wasn't a very good source of recruitment for other work.

The learning curve from volunteer to full-time worker has been fast and steep, as the charity itself was developing and they were learning how to put the correct systems in place. Covid-19 has made it harder. (DD is responsible for ensuring that everything is Covid-19 safe, in addition to all her other jobs.) You will know how complex the work can be, not only with all the safeguarding and confidentiality issues, the need to know all the relevant legislation, the networking, and so on. There are also the complex needs of the service users and often their challenging behaviour. I am sure that you can think of many more issues which make the work far from simple.

What I am trying to say is that there is a limit to what you can ask volunteers to do. At DD's charity, they have managed to keep some volunteers during lock down, although the charity shop and public events like free meals were curtailed. They have development plans for all volunteers to help them develop skills and confidence (particularly useful for the volunteers who were formerly service users). However, the vast majority of the responsibility has to be shouldered by the staff. It's one thing to ask somebody to serve hot drinks or give a sleeping bag to a rough sleeper, but a lot to ask a volunteer to deal with complicated issues where lives can literally depend on your work. DD's charity has trained some volunteers to do some of the initial work but the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the staff. I am not sure that you will get many volunteers who want to take that on. It's a big responsibility, a lot of work and often involves wrestling with bureaucracy. Not everyone's cup of tea.

As you can't do public events, which attract attention, at the moment I think your best hope is online. Do you have your own Facebook page for your charity? DD's charity has many followers online, amazing people who support them and will help out if there's a dire emergency - doesn't happen often but they are there if needed. If you can get followers for your Facebook page, maybe you can recruit from there.

You are doing good work. Bless you and good luck.

I think Devon was mentioned further back.

Can you tell me where are you based please.

If you have tried the local volunteer bureau, I can only suggest your local branches of Lions Club, Round Table, Seroptomists or publicity through local radio.

People shy away from volunteering because it's an unknown situation and they are fearful of being pressured to do more hours/days than they want to.

If you can get them 'over the doorstep' for a set, two hour taster session, you're half way there - especially if they can bring a friend.

Good luck Grannyactivist I do think that the current situation is going to make older people quite anxious about helping the homeless. Others have suggested ways of recruiting volunteers, but retaining them is also important.
The small local charity for which I volunteer provides excellent training and continues to look after us volunteers, providing support and (currently online) social events where we can share our experiences. I'm proud to be part of it.

I used to volunteer with Citizens Advice and I wonder if you could contact your local one, explain your dilemma and see if anybody would be able to help you.
WI is another option. Offer training and support as well in your advert. That helps people to feel comfortable. Good luck ??

I think radio has already been tried JanaNana

I wonder if your local radio station could be of help. A few years ago on our local radio, a lady who was a volunteer prison visitor was given a slot to speak about the need for volunteers to help some of the recently discharged prisoners. This plea was to help them specifically with learning to read.
She was shocked to find that many of the prisoners were illiterate and felt that by being able to read it would give them more of a chance in life.
If you could have the chance to speak on your local radio station you could put your request across with the help of the host putting across some of the specific things required by volunteers. Wishing you well.

I was part of a fundraising event last year for a homeless charity. I got talking to a volunteer who told me of a scheme of offering a couple of days of emergency care in ones own home to allow the person a good nights sleep and a shower while a more permanent solution could be found. I have two spare bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms so excitedly took a brochure with a view to talking my husband in to doing something good.
The brochure stated that great care should be taken, the guest must not have friends to visit and we must not open the door to any friends of the guest. They must not be left alone in other rooms of the house and all valuables must be locked away. I can’t remember the rest but it certainly put us off.
A shame really because it makes your job very difficult.

I’m wondering if it’s more to do with how we are living at the moment with covid lurking around that has maybe put people off rather than anything else. Maybe folk are concerned that these people may have higher risk of being/ getting infected due to the way they are living. Obviously I don’t know but it popped straight into my mind when I read your post.

Having read through what a volunteer needs to be able to do, I doubt there are many people in the area that have these skills.
I worked in community health and public health at management level and would struggle to find someone for a salaried position to do all of the tasks you ask for.
Maybe asking for volunteer office help would find volunteers.

The organisation I work with utilises volunteers also and we have a great team....have you thought about linking in with Citizens Advice?
They may have people who can't meet their time commitments but could offer you some time.
Likewise if you have any local colleges that have a law dept'....we work in the field of criminal law, many Uni's have a law clinic so students need less supervision.
Apologies if I'm repeating suggestions.

I am thinking that perhaps retired social workers would be good to help.
They will already know about those forms and how to fill them in.
Also social workers who are being furloughed perhaps could step in for a time to train up others

You need paid staff, I dont think what you are describing is a role for volunteers.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I think you are asking too much of volunteers- to make decisions about people's lives and different situations. You need to start paying people to work for you as the tasks sound very complicated and time consuming. If a volunteer makes a mistake and, say, a person is made homeless because they had the wrong advice, where is the comeback!