Unity strengthens and inhibits development: A focus group interview with volunteer adults in support programs for bereaved children and their family

Abstract

This article illuminates (inter)actions and group dynamics of adult volunteers in programs for bereaved children and parents. A focus group interview with seven volunteers in Swedish was conducted. A latent, thematic analysis was conducted, inspired by Braun and Clarke, and Goffman. Two themes were constructed: Personal despair as a motivation for establishing and consolidating voluntary involvement and The volunteers acted as an extended family. Group dynamics within the group contributed to uphold volunteers’ adherence to formal and informal guidance related to the program. Strong engagement among volunteers and internal recruitment strategies contributed to uphold and consolidate the program’s implementation.

Introduction

This article focuses on volunteers as facilitators and assistants in support programs for bereaved children and their parents and what motivates volunteers to engage in such volunteer activity. Volunteer work is unpaid work for the benefit of others (Gottlieb & Gillespie, 2008). Robinson (2011) stated that the volunteer workforce, which is drawn largely from a mono-cultural community, represents the middle-class sector of the community. Volunteers in support programs in general get satisfaction from putting their own experiences to good use (Greenwood et al., 2013), as it is a source of pleasant feelings for the volunteers themselves (Halvorsrud et al., 2020; Lie et al., 2009). A literature review shows that feeling needed and appreciated can augment volunteers’ well-being (Tierney et al., 2022).

Halvorsrud et al. (2020) show that volunteers in dementia carers’ support programs are offered the opportunity to engage in mutually supportive relationships with carers, based on shared experience and interests, contributing to a better everyday life for the supported individuals. The volunteers gain satisfaction over time from seeing positive changes in the supported individuals’ lives, also influencing the volunteers’ private life and sense of autonomy (Halvorsrud et al., 2020; McLeish & Redshaw, 2017). Other volunteers experienced feelings of guilt as they knew the magnitude of the individuals’ needs but were unable to help them because of limited resources (Aho et al., 2013; McLeish & Redshaw, 2017). However, volunteers often felt personally supported by other volunteers in their voluntary work (McLeish & Redshaw, 2017). Moreover, feeling valued and feeling that one’s work as a volunteer is of value can enhance individuals’ self-identity (Tierney et al., 2022). However, Tierney et al. (2022) show that volunteers’ well-being can be threatened if they feel unsupported or undervalued, if there is a poor fit between the volunteer and their voluntary work, if volunteers lack skills and/or training to undertake the work, and if the commissioning organizations’ expectations on volunteers are excessive.

Clary and Snyder (1999) identified six motives for volunteering, out of which the development and strengthening of social ties seems to apply particularly to volunteering among older adults (Okun & Schultz, 2003). Further motives are the gaining of experience related to one’s career, enhancing feelings of self-worth, learning about life, reducing negative affect, and acting on strongly held values (Clary & Snyder, 1999). There are thus studies on the antecedents (e.g., subjective dispositions, human resources, life course, social context) and the potential beneficial health effects of volunteerism. However, studies focusing on experiences of volunteering per se are scarcer, especially studies focusing on the potential influence of volunteer work’s social context on volunteers’ satisfaction and commitment, studies of the volunteer experience as such, and studies on how volunteers relate to participants, other volunteers, and permanent staff (Wilson, 2012).

Historically and still, support programs for bereaved children are usually organized and provided by charity organizations and rarely by formal healthcare services (Danish National bereavement Centre, 2017; Robinson, 2011; Winston’s wish, 2018). The basic idea in many support programs is to provide peer support through supportive interactions and the sharing of concerns and problems. Informal programs are often run by volunteers with varied backgrounds, who often receive priori specific training (Ridley & Frache, 2020; Schut & Stroebe, 2010). In the western world, many adult volunteers support bereaved children through such support programs (Gyllenswärd, 1997; Ridley & Frache, 2020; Winston’s wish, 2018; Wolfe, 1994).

Reviews indicate that there are many studies considering different types of support programs/interventions and related outcomes for bereaved children across different age groups, sometimes also including their significant adults, after bereavement associated with significant others (Bergman et al., 2017; Chen & Panebianco, 2018; Ellis et al., 2017; Inhestern et al., 2016; Millar et al., 2020; Ridley & Frache, 2020). Studies are also found about parental strategies for and challenges in the support of bereaved children (Bugge et al., 2014; Porterfield et al., 2003; Rolls & Payne, 2007; Rolls, 2010; Rossetto, 2015; Saldinger et al., 2003, 2004; Silverman et al., 2003). Further, studies show how schoolteachers support bereaved children, including associated challenges as experienced by the teachers (Abraham-Steele & Edmonds, 2021; Dimery & Templeton, 2021; Holland & Wilkinson, 2015; Lane et al., 2014; Levkovich & Elyoseph, 2021; Lowton & Higginson, 2003). Healthcare professionals are also the focus of some studies, which show several support strategies employed with bereaved children (Semple et al., 2022). However, reviews also reveal that healthcare professionals rarely have those children as their target groups (Ewens et al., 2021; Franklin et al., 2019; Fu et al., Forthcoming). To the best of our knowledge, there is only one study focusing on volunteers supporting bereaved children in such support programs. Hogwood (2007) showed that it could be intense and emotionally draining to support bereaved children. It demands good self-care mechanisms and the availability of solid support networks for volunteers. Nonetheless, no studies are found regarding the volunteers’ motives for engaging in such work as a spare time activity nor about such groups’ internal dynamics. Thus, we aim to illuminate motives of adult volunteers in support programs for bereaved children and their family, focusing on actions and interactions and group dynamics within the group of volunteers, as expressed and observed during a focus group interview.

Theoretical framework

Goffman used metaphors borrowed from dramaturgy in his conceptualization of identity and human interactions (Goffman, 1990). An actor is conscious of being observed frontstage by an audience and will therefore often perform in accordance with certain rules and social conventions (Goffman, 1990), contributing to maintaining the desired self-image (Goffman, 1955). Often, actors’ behaviors are different in private, backstage environments where performance is unnecessary. Backstage is without a public view. There, actors can allow themselves to use preferred language, wear preferred clothes, and interact or refrain from interacting with whomever they want. Backstage constructs the characters’ presentation frontstage, where performances can be regarded as “self-presentation” (Goffman, 1990). The character of peoples’ behaviors is influenced by micro social expectations and norms (Goffman, 1967). Goffman distinguished situations in terms of degrees of formality. Thus, in formal meetings, there is typically a clear plot, which also applies in most healthcare settings such as voluntary support programs, where actions and interactions often take place according to pre-scheduled encounters. In the current study, we looked at actions and interactions from the perspective of volunteers. We focused on the roles that they played both frontstage and backstage during this program, as directly and indirectly described by the volunteers and observed by the researchers during the focus group interview. Goffman showed that there are four categories of roles. The role of duty appears as a necessity. The role of attachment is preferred by the one playing it. The role of embracement is taken voluntarily out of interest. Finally, the role of distance is taken on to avoid a specific situation and function (Goffman, 1990).

Method

This study was part of a larger ethnographic field study conducted from February to June 2019 in a voluntary, informal support program for bereaved children and surviving parents in Sweden. The main study’s overarching aim was to investigate how the program was presented, planned, and implemented, and what significance it has for children, parents, and volunteers. The main study comprised 82 hours of field observations, 25 semi-structured individual interviews with children and parents, and one focus group interview, with the latter being the current study’s empirical material.

The context of the study

The study’s context and focus area are a voluntary support program for bereaved children and their family in Sweden, developed and described by Gyllenswärd (1997). Similar programs, also inspired by Gyllenswärd (Wolfe, 1994; Winston’s wish, 2018), exist in the USA, Norway, and England. A project in Zimbabwe, conducted and led by the organization Save the Children in Sweden and the psychologist Göran Gyllenswärd (1997) in 1993, represents the starting point for the guidelines and recommendations developed for this support program. The program as such is experience-based, and a book with guidelines and recommendations developed specifically for the program is intended to help and guide those who want to start groups for children affected by severe loss. The guidelines describe how a group activity can help bereaved children to process their grief (Gyllenswärd, 1997). The program entails three elements. (1) A first meeting (30–60 minutes) where the child, the parent and the volunteers get acquainted with each other and align expectations. The inclusion and exclusion of participants take place after this meeting. (2) Seven consecutive supportive group meetings of 6–15 children, divided into different age groups. These meetings are structured in time, content, and form. A facilitator leads the meetings together with an assistant in the studied program, both of which are volunteers. (3) Seven consecutive supportive group meetings for parents. These meetings are also structured in time, content, and form (Gyllenswärd, 1997). Every group meeting has a specific theme, and both children and parents work with the same theme at the same time in their respective, separate groups (Gyllenswärd, 1997). Furthermore, two meetings for supervision and professional guidance led by a social worker specialized in family therapy, is arranged throughout the program that was the object of the current study. At the program’s start, all volunteers were unpaid. Today, however, volunteers are given an allowance by the municipality. The support program investigated in the current study started in 2004, in a large city in Sweden.

Recruitment of participants

Eight volunteers, consisting of facilitators and assistants, who were engaged in the support program were invited to participate in the current study. They received oral and written information about the study. There were no exclusion criteria. All signed a written informed consent and accepted to participate. However, one volunteer withdrew from the planned focus group interview due to other commitments. The volunteers, six women and one man, had a professional background as nurse, priest, teacher, or deacon, and had worked with children and/or palliative care throughout their professional careers. They were between 34 and 69 years old (average age 61). Five were married, and six had children and grandchildren.

Data collection

Data was collected using a focus group interview, June 2019 (Krueger & Casey, 2000). The interview was conducted after the end of the support program in the premises where the program was held. The interview guide consisted of themes about professionals’ opinions, perceptions, ideas, and experiences of the support program in general and relating specifically to the presently studied program round. The focus group interview was led by two researchers. The second author (HK) conducted the interview, and the first author (SG) observed the situation, took field notes, and supplied questions at the end of the interview. The interview lasted 120 minutes. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Analysis strategy

Data was analyzed through a latent, thematic analysis, methodically inspired by Braun and Clarke (2006). First, the empirical material was read several times, focusing on the aim, to get an overall picture and thorough understanding of its contents. This process facilitated what Braun and Clarke (2006) called familiarization with the material. Second, the researchers sorted the empirical material using questions to code and reorganize the contents. The analytical questions were inspired by Goffman’s (1955, 1967, 1990) concepts of frontstage, backstage, identity, and roles:

• How had the volunteers become a part of the support program?

• How did the volunteers perform, act, and interact in the support program frontstage and backstage, with whom, and where?

• Which different roles did the volunteers have throughout the support program, how, and where?

• How did the volunteers act and interact, and which different roles did they have throughout the focus group interview?

The setting, here the support program, gave cues as to what kind of actions and interactions should take place. According to Goffman (1955, 1967), interactions among people, here volunteers, involve generic sets of scripts of actions that regulate behavior. Such normative expectations amount to the support program’s guidelines and recommendations, of which the inbuilt expectations on (inter)actions were picked up by the actors when they narrated situations relating to the program. It meant that the support program enabled a frame through which the volunteers saw and apprehended the world. Furthermore, Goffman (1955, 1967, 1990) showed that the frames and setting are not apart from human actions, and the way the volunteers narrated themselves, those involved in the program, and the program itself was a way to reveal such actions and understandings. Through an analytical Goffman lens the volunteers’ interactions and narratives were reconstructed to a new, theoretical understanding of human activities performed as volunteers in a support program for bereaved families. The third analytical step was to construct initial themes based on similarities and differences of the coded material. The initial themes were then developed and reviewed in a consensual analysis process amongst the authors, going back and forth between the constructed themes and the empirical material to make sure that the themes appropriately reflected the empirical material and answered the study’s aim. The researchers had ongoing discussions along the process with constant focus on and guidance by the theoretical framework. Finally, the themes were refined and defined, and two themes were named: Personal despair as a motivation for establishing and consolidating voluntary involvement and The volunteers acted as an extended family. Quotes from the empirical material served as illustration of the analysis and for transparency of the authors’ interpretation of data.

Ethical considerations

The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the World Medical Association (WMA, 2013) and approved by the Swedish Regional Ethics Board (Dnr:2018/618). Participation was voluntary. All participants gave their informed consent to participate. They were informed about confidentiality, their right to withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without consequences for their engagement in the support program. All names in the current article are pseudonyms.

Findings

Despair as motivation for establishing and consolidating the support program

The volunteers described two main reasons for taking on the role as volunteer in and for initiating the support program. The first one was work-triggered despair. This had become a visible frontstage characteristic in the volunteers’ professional workplace and related to the informants witnessing how surviving parents and their children tried to cope in life after the death of a spouse/parent. Bereaved parents and children lost their affiliation with the healthcare system when partners/parents that were recipients of healthcare died. The volunteers cared about how those families were going to progress in life. They were of the belief that by embracing a volunteer role, combined with their professional background, they could make a difference for these adults and children. At the same time, they took on a role of duty, as they found that someone had to act on behalf of the bereaved families.

A hospice group talked about […] when a mother dies, for example, the husband must leave with two children and a bag in his hand. When he went out the door, we said, “How are they doing?” […] “What is there afterwards?” [.] You had groups of children in the hospital for a year, and we got in touch with you, Eva, and then we started thinking (a voluntary organization) was interested in the program […] and we started three groups. (Tina)

Another reason for establishing and taking on the role as volunteer was triggered backstage in the private arena, when experiencing bereavement in one’s own family and circle of friends. Based on their own experiences, when little or no help was offered to the bereaved family members, the volunteers recognized an unheard call for help.

I had lost my sister and she had three rather small children and in between the children said to me several times, “What if I had met others who knew what it was all about.” It was there in the back of my mind when I worked at the hospice. (Eva)

The fact that new members took on the role as a volunteer and decided to take part in the group’s work was experienced as an acknowledgement of the volunteers’ work. The recruitment of new volunteers also bears witness to the group members’ motivation and engagement with the cause. At times, the appointed volunteer members personally pointed out new volunteers to the group with the expectation that they could fit into the group and perform well. It meant that the recruitment strategies were “closed”; that is internally managed, and that the group functioned as a self-recruiting group, with group members appointing and including new volunteering group members. One inclusion strategy consisted of finding a replacement when ending one’s own volunteer work in the group. This could be regarded as resigning volunteers taking on the role of duty and feeling responsible for the support program’s continuation.

I’ve worked with children in palliative and advanced homecare. Children who become orphans (by losing one parent). I have a special interest in children. Our social worker was in the group (support program) before, and she asked me, “Aren’t you going to be in that group? We need one (additional volunteer) now.” So, I just slipped in. (Karina)

Another recruitment strategy consisted of volunteers consolidating the volunteers’ group by taking on the role as appointers. It was a call for additional human resources from the volunteers involved in the program. The motivation to take on the role as a volunteer was supported by the fact that others trusted that the person could take on that role and successfully perform as a volunteer, as understood from the groups’ view on what it meant to be a suitable volunteer. In Goffman’s words, the nomination of volunteers functioned as an encouragement and applause to enter the frontstage for new volunteers.

Pinpointing colleagues and friends with professions deemed as suitable for the task represented an additional way of recruiting volunteers. Another way of recruiting new volunteers consisted of pinpointing actual volunteers’ family members. This may or may not, directly or indirectly, entail a possibility that family obligations can induce the role to be assumed by duty, but also by embracement or even attachment. Either way, the appointing volunteers took on both the roles of embracement and of duty in trying to locate and appoint new volunteers.

It was through Eva (family member) and Sam (family member) (that I became a volunteer). I thought it was very interesting because, where I work, we had lots to do with the cancer society regarding children who have lost a sibling […]. I found it very interesting, so that’s why I joined the program. (Johan)

I got in via Tina, and I was also asked before, by Tina. Together with our deacon at the hospice, I took care of all related follow-ups (relative programs after a patient’s death) and there, Tina always came with brochures (about the support program), and we always broached it (the possibility of the current bereavement support program) in the groups and passed on information to the groups. (Mari)

The group’s recruitment strategies invited new volunteers to perform frontstage, based on the actual and recruiting volunteers’ personal preferences, including their sense of who could fit into the existing group of volunteers. The group’s recruitment strategy was hence driven by the existing group of volunteers, which was led and acknowledged by the two initiators.

Behind all the volunteers’ reasons to take on the role as volunteer, there was a dream about making a positive difference. Frontstage, the volunteers took on and embraced a role as supporter of and in the program, among the children and co-volunteers. Backstage, the volunteers experienced a personal satisfaction from having done something good for someone else, while upholding a role that fit into the volunteer group by adapting to the group’s formal and informal rules of behavior.

One of my first jobs in XX n, I (teacher) had a boy who died. (We didn’t know) how to work with the other children around this. (We realized) n how little guidance and material there was for teachers to be able to take care of classmates. Since then, it has felt rewarding to work with the difficult things in relation to children, and now I got to work with Johan (in the program), and it was very exciting. (Monica)

Having met bereaved children and parents backstage, in their own private life, and frontstage, in work contexts, thus came through as both motivations and driving forces for the actors taking on the role as volunteers in the support program.

The volunteers acted as an extended family

The group of volunteers acted and performed as an extended family for the individual volunteers. The group encompassed two “senior” members who acted as informal leaders, thus playing the role of head of family and program “producers” toward the other group members. The volunteer group’s two informal leaders strongly believed in the program’s value. They consolidated the upholding and performance by volunteers in the group of the program’s basic idea by setting the group’s rules and instructed the other volunteers to act in line with the original manuscript (Gyllenwärd’s book) for the support program.

We have a very nice framework. I think we got a receipt for this in the last group. One of the women (a bereaved parent) expressed that the program had been very good because she had taken different steps forward. And there had not been any repetitive talks like there can be in other places, where you talk about how you feel, and it just goes around and around. […] It strengthens (our confidence) that we have these frameworks, and that we also have the different themes that we work with. (Eva)

The second informal leader supported the first one in her expressed perceptions and actions, including related decisions, also by practically organizing the program activities. The performance of this role in the group included framing the viewpoints and consolidating the idea of the program among all actors, also by initiating exchanges of viewpoints and experiences throughout the focus group interview (Researcher observation, field notes from focus group interview).

I’ve participated so many times that I […] feel very confident with the method and everything, and I’m very confident to deviate from the structured agenda as well. I sense the group […] I think that it’s quite ingenious that there is a well thought out process in the program. (Tina)

The other volunteers took on the role as followers of the informal leaders, with most of the volunteers acting and performing in line with the informal leaders’ instructions and Gyllenswärds’s book. The volunteers did not have specific formal training in the program, but they must read Gyllenswärd’s book. They thereby fit culturally into the formal and informal culture of the volunteers’ group, where they supported the support program’s strategies and ideas. The actors felt confident with and embraced the role as volunteers, supported by the fact that the manuscript, that is, the set-up and the methods used in the support program, were well-known and incorporated in the informal leaders’ actions and guidance through years of experiences and repetition.

(It felt) safe that there was a planned agenda and I thought that agenda was nice, and it touched upon parts that help the children to actually think about things in a very concrete way (Monica)

I think that the structure is important, both for the children and for us (Johan).

Less experienced actors (i.e., volunteers) found support through the informal leaders and more experienced co-volunteers.

I felt very confident collaborating with Tina [an experienced volunteer]. This is the first time I’m involved, and I felt very confident in the groups and processes. It felt very good to have the plan we had (Mari).

It was important for newcomers to deliver a convincing performance to be accepted as a reliable and capable volunteer in the support program. This implied that newcomers’ performances had to be constructed on certain rules, as orchestrated by the informal leaders. At times, certain volunteers acted and performed in the role of rebels. They challenged the program’s conditions, structure, and contents, for instance by comparing the support program to a school setting with embedded expectations on the children in relation to behaviors and input/outcomes.

It was a bit like school, and one of the children once commented that this is almost like a school. (Monica).

When Monica spoke up in the focus group interview, she was often kindly stopped or corrected by the informal leaders. Often, she held back her views, but occasionally she pointed out experiences made from a newcomer’s perspective, where she saw different things than the other volunteers in the program. (Researcher observations, field notes from focus group interview)

Behaviors deviating from these (in)formal rules raised questions about the volunteers’ viewpoints and could potentially disrupt the performances’ accuracy, as viewed by the other group members. The informal leaders reacted to possible rebels in the group by settling potential conflicts within the volunteer group, so the frontline image of a harmonious working group could be maintained. It seemed important that there was an outward consensus in the group on essential aspects of the program and how it was delivered, with differing views being quietly but firmly silenced. Some of the newcomers’ statements, however, seemed to reveal or nuance the group’s inherent understandings, for example, how dropout from the support program is understood.

(Are there any children who have dropped out?)

Eva: We just talked about it today. There are a few.

Tina: I think there are two, and I don’t think there have been any more in several years. [.] It can’t be many percent all in all.

Eva: No, no.

Monica: You could say that X dropped out this time. She didn’t come last time.

The group as such expressed opinions about a well-functioning, successful program, which was valuable for the participants. This acted as a self-recognition, consolidating their belief that their voluntary efforts and the program itself were good in terms of supporting bereaved children.

It can be seen in the evaluations (that the program helps children) and we (volunteers) believe that it has given something, but it has always given something (Tina).

The volunteers’ descriptions gave the impression that all went well with the program, with successful outcomes for all children, their parents, and for the volunteers. However, there were understated dissonances and signs of disagreement and contradictions that also testified to the more problematic aspects of the voluntary work in the program, for instance that it was not possible to successfully help all the included children according to their actual needs.

We have decided that you can come back once (participate in the program again) if there is a need. We have talked to them (the participants) about what it (the needs) might be about. But not a third time (program participation). Then we have to try to help them with something else because we can’t help them anymore. Then, this is not what they need, maybe something individual or something else. (Tina)

Throughout the interview, the volunteers made a virtue of being in agreement about their frontstage strategies, although with the possibility of small, improvised deviations from the concept, as described by Gyllenswärd (1997), when experienced as necessary. However, frontstage situations also arose for which the guidelines did not contain proposals for action. An example was that one of the newcomers was familiar with one of the program participants’ deceased partners and chose to inform the spouse (i.e., the program participant), about this. This frontstage performance caused unease in the volunteer group, since the spouse reacted negatively to this approach. The informal leaders problematized the newcomer’s performance and advised about a more “correct,” in their eyes, frontstage performance.

The volunteers displayed positive attitudes and altruistic commitment to their performance in the program. They recounted on their ability to transform difficult situations into positive experiences.

I want to tell you something that was a little negative, which then turned into something positive. One of the women wanted to change groups (due to other participants’ background with abuse and criminality)[…] she did not want to be in the group because of their backgrounds and […] (thoughts about) how it affects (the children) [...] I didn’t give her the chance to change groups and, instead, tried to explain (the benefits)[…] We talked about this and I said, “You have to think about how you want to do it. If it doesn’t work, we can’t decide. Only you can decide if you want to continue or not.” She continued and it turned out great (Tina). Other group leaders confirm and agree (Researcher observation, field notes from focus group interview)

Discussion

The current findings show that personal experiences of death and grief, whether in a professional or private sphere, were both motivators and driving forces behind the volunteers’ decision to take on their role as a volunteer in the support program. The wish to help, to ease program participants’ grief, to offer support that they themselves and/or relatives and significant others lacked in the face of death, were thus all motivators behind the volunteers’ decision to enlist and work in the support program. The will to do good, combined with the opportunity to act altruistically to help fellow humans in a difficult life situation, could thus be seen as catalysts to volunteer work, as also shown in other studies (Haski‐Leventhal, 2009; Stukas et al., 2016). However, altruism can be regarded as rewarding both generous and “egoistic” self-fulfillment goals (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). All volunteers had their educational and professional backgrounds in service professions, which per se are relationship professions (Krejsler et al., 2008), where they were used to work with people in need and cater for these in professional ways.

Moreover, the findings show that the actual group members’ personal networks and assessments of possible competent future volunteers seem to influence the current group’s composition. The group’s internal recruitment strategies in terms of new volunteers also meant that personal contact of some degree represented a potential way for newcomers into the group and volunteer work. The used recruitment strategies also show that the group’s continued work is in part made possible through the group members’ engagement and experienced sense of responsibility to uphold the group and program’s supportive work. Stukas et al. (2016) found that volunteers can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, but also more or less self- or other-oriented in their motivation to volunteerism, either way, with the potential achievement of good.

The group members’ recruitment strategies seem to point to the volunteers’ professional background as a potentially important factor, which may contribute to the recruiters’ assessment of prospective volunteers as fit for the task. The group members used recruitment strategies that can be compared to a snowballing sampling strategy (Leighton et al., 2021), by recruiting new volunteers, with what was estimated as a suitable professional background, through colleagues, friends, and family members. This may be a way of targeting persons that the members know have what they deem as a suitable background and/or personal characteristics and/or motivation to pursue these kinds of tasks. Previous research also shows that volunteers tend to use their own social networks to recruit new volunteers, with an overrepresentation of middle-class and relatively well-educated older adults within volunteering in civic engagement contexts (Gottlieb & Gillespie, 2008).

The appointed volunteers are sociologically similar and in principle interchangeable with each other. In the current study, voluntary work tended to become a retirement spare time work, which has the embedded advantage that a grandparent-grandchild-like relationship can arise between the volunteers and the bereaved children, with the possibility of intergenerational solidarity (Duflos & Giraudeau, 2022). Conversely, there is also a general satisfaction with the way voluntary work is carried out, with a relatively modest tendency toward critical self-reflection and a latent resistance to change. Moreover, power relationships were visible between newcomers and experienced volunteers. For instance, when newcomers pointed out shortcomings in or possible modifications of the program contents, their proposals tended to be dismissed. Although, it seems spontaneously problematic to maintain a program that was developed in 1997 without introducing changes in line with a changeable world, nothing can be said about the potential efficiency and value of the program’s contents and set-up for program participants since this was not the current study’s focus. The family unity of volunteers seems strong, and, at the same time, the groups strive for consensus may inhibit further developments of the program.

Furthermore, the findings show that the training of newcomers takes place as apprenticeship, where newcomers are paired with senior/experienced volunteers and are trained by being their assistant during the program. In that way, newcomers learned about the known and hidden, planned and unplanned manuscripts in the support program and how to act both frontstage and backstage. Apprenticeship is a “master teaching” that has a strong socializing power in relation to volunteers’ inclusion and exclusion in the program, with “master teachers” assessing if newcomers are competent co-actors in the program (Glasdam et al., 2021). Hamarat and Celikoglu (2020) also show that senior volunteers have a higher position than newcomers in a studied volunteer program, where they introduce and raise newcomers to the right and expected performance. This can have consequences in terms of future inclusion or exclusion of volunteers in the program, depending on their performance. According to Wackerhausen and Wackerhausen (1999), an inherent problem in this training concept is that “not every old rat is a master,” whereby possible inappropriate behavior and habits are transferred from master to newcomer, which maintains group dynamics and leadership in groups for better or for worse.

The study has its strengths and limitations. Data was collected through one focus group representing a limited sample. The fact that data was collected in one group can be contested and limits the findings’ transferability, which calls for further studies. Nonetheless, the study’s aim was not to draw any general conclusions regarding the subject of study, but to illuminate potential driving forces behind the volunteers’ work, including group dynamics. This paves the way for further research to explore the subject in more depth. Goffman’s theory on identity and human interactions, using metaphors borrowed from dramaturgy, was used as a theoretical framework for the analysis, lifting the analysis to a theoretical level, in part to minimize the influence of the researchers’ pre-understandings on data analysis. The choice of theoretical framework guided the analytical questions posed to the data and different frameworks could be used to bring forward different angles on data and the analysis process. However, no theory or philosophical perspective can possibly shed light on an absolute truth about the studied phenomenon or the studied persons, but different theoretical and philosophical perspectives can shed light on the studied phenomenon/persons from different perspectives. Taken together, all such perspectives help illuminate the complexity at stake, including the chosen Goffman perspective.

Conclusion

The current study contributes to shed light on driving forces behind volunteers’ engagement in a support program for bereaved children, including actions and interactions within the volunteers’ group. The study thus contributes to expand the knowledge on volunteers engaged in support programs targeting children specifically, including motivating factors for engaging in such work, and on internal dynamics in such volunteer groups, where previous research is lacking. The study shows that personal despair, based on private and/or professional experiences, and the will to do good are strong motivating factors and driving forces behind adult volunteers’ engagement in support programs for bereaved children with families. Further, strong engagement among the volunteers and internal recruitment strategies contributed to uphold and consolidate the support program’s implementation. Both formal and informal guidance and leadership contributed to uphold the group’s volunteering work. Further studies are motivated to explore volunteers’ group dynamics and power relationships, also focusing on the consequences, possibilities, and limitations of support programs for bereaved children and parents to address participants’ needs and on the volunteers’ meetings with these respective parties.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all participants in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Palliative and advanced homecare (ASIH) Lund in Sweden, Lund University, and Southern Sweden's Nurses Association financially funded the current study’s PhD student. Open Access funded by Lund University.