Volunteering and the response to COVID-19 in the UK

Abstract

This article provides an insight into the voluntary sector’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in one UK region, using qualitative evidence from a rapid evaluation study with leaders of volunteer agencies. We picked out the information relevant to services that disabled people access, as a way to provide a snapshot of the issues experienced during the various lockdowns, as well as participants’ concerns for the future of volunteering in the UK.

Keywords:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• Local authorities
• Social care
• Volunteering

Introduction

The extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have heavily influenced the UK volunteer sector (Mak and Fancourt 2020; Benton and Power 2021). The response to rising inequalities during this time by voluntary service providers was rapid and complex. This meant that providers had to adjust their activities and scope, by harnessing social networks and connections, and using local knowledge and social trust in order to effectively collaborate (Mao et al. 2021). These transformative actions have worked to strengthen the support infrastructure as well as increase community identity and cohesion.

This article provides early findings of a project that investigates the experiences of those delivering place-based services in Lancaster and Morecambe (NW England), in particular how they responded to the inequalities around COVID-19 pandemic exposure. We wanted to explore whether their responses led to transformative actions, as well as finding out their longer-term needs, in order to inform future operations that work towards better, more equitable outcomes for all.

Twenty leaders of voluntary services serving various groups agreed to be interviewed in-depth. The study adhered to ethical principles and was given ethical approval by Lancaster University Faculty of Health and Medicine. We found that the discussions could be themed into the following: ‘immediate response’, ‘transformative actions’, ‘future concerns’ and ‘lessons learned’. We will give a short explanation of each theme in the following sections.

Immediate response

At the beginning of the pandemic, all participants mentioned the change in demographic of volunteers offering to help, as well as the needs of people served. The participants told us that their existing volunteers had been generally from groups who were told to self-isolate, and that volunteers coming forward tended to be people who were furloughed from work-places and therefore had more time to spend, as well as people who were retired from the NHS, particularly ex nurses or doctors. Immediate activities involved accessing food shopping and prescription medications, and delivering them to people who were isolating:

So early on, we put our telephone number, the vicarage telephone number, out to the community to say if you’re in need of any support, or you need shopping doing, or you need prescriptions picking up. And also, if you’re willing to volunteer to help - let us know! So I was inundated with requests for help and also offers of help from people. (P1)

Transformative actions

Although many services were centring their immediate efforts on providing emergency help, there were other planning activities going on. These included moving services to online platforms, and organising work and premises according to the government guidance. Also, some were starting new initiatives, such as creating hubs for welfare advice and crisis support within their provision, accessing and moving to new premises, and bidding for funds to support these:

We’ve transferred many things onto Zoom. I launched retirement planning courses that also include things like your wills and powers of attorney, just as we went into lockdown. I’ve now transferred those digitally… And we’ve just received some funding to provide those courses, from the building society actually, to provide those courses for people that can’t afford to pay. So again, it’s being adaptable, you know. [P5]

With community buildings such as libraries closing during lockdowns, most organisations had to move their support online. Some organisations found the move to online to be transformative, allowing them to reach more people. However other organisations struggled with the move to online working, finding it difficult to keep in touch with their communities, with some resorting to making weekly telephone calls and distributing leaflets to counteract isolation and raise awareness of their offer of support:

Technical issues have been a big part of the challenge for us, being a relatively low-tech organisation, and for our membership as well. (P9)

The participants described many transformative actions, such as setting up new systems and ways of working that they intend to continue, including working more collaboratively with other services, as well as utilising online technology to simplify referrals and volunteer planning:

A major piece of work was setting up a web-based system online – matching up a volunteer with someone who needed help. We helped with that, it’s about shopping, befriending, prescriptions. The NHS has an ICC (Integrated Care Communities) lead and she very quickly put together a spreadsheet of what local services are offering, which shops are doing food delivery, which tradespeople are offering services, if you need help how you can get it. Making sure everyone has the information that they need. That sort of thing has probably saved lives, because of how quickly it happened, and we all added to it. (P14)

This drive to the online environment was one that was experienced unequally by different voluntary sector organisations - some experienced the move to the digital milieu as a resounding success, connecting with service users seamlessly and efficiently. Other organisations – most notably some less well-resourced community centres – struggled with the requirement to move online, noticing a significant drop-off in their key groups such as children and young people, who they felt they had lost vital connections with.

The services, with their unique community knowledge, picked up a lot of work from other agencies during this time. The increased workload and the need for urgency resulted in many paid staff working much more than their weekly hours, and this caused strain for many:

I’ve been open ever since March – I’ve not had a break or an annual leave day or anything since March. And I said to my boss, and I’m actually quite exhausted. Now. I’ve been unwell, this week, and, you know, I need a break. (P13)

Future concerns

There were many comments showing concern about individuals not getting the support they needed, and suggesting reasons for this. These included homeless people struggling with mental health and substance misuse who had been housed in hostels and hotels but not given other support; people who were unable to get online due to digital exclusion; and those with mental health conditions who became isolated:

Last week my colleague was talking down someone from suicide, he already had mental health issues before the pandemic, but now he is living on his own with no contact anywhere, and it’s made him suicidal again. (P13)

Sustainability of core funding was seen to be a huge challenge in the near future for all services – with some services feeling as though they may have to close down entirely due to lack of funding:

One huge problem is funding something for one year or two years on a rolling contract. Well, it takes you many months to get staff recruited and trained and in place. And then if it’s a two year project, the last six months are wasted because the contract’s coming to an end. So even if something’s working really well they may re-tender it and give it a whole different name and all. [P4]

Lessons learned

The participants described many positive lessons that came out of their experiences. Much of this was about the way the voluntary sector had quickly gathered together resources and worked together to support people who needed help, but also there were insights into the benefits for everyone of the activities of volunteering, for example:

One thing people don’t realise as far as a volunteer is how rewarding it is! Because, you know, it’s nice to be part of the community. Yeah, of course it is. I mean, it’s beneficial for everyone. It’s beneficial for the volunteers and the people that are helped now. [P5]

In the voluntary sector there is a lot of competition traditionally, we are all bidding for money. All that’s completely gone away, organisations still want to stay alive but there is collaboration, as long as people get the help they need then it doesn’t matter who is doing it. Very different sectors coming together to offer support people is really good. Now that we’ve done it and we’ve realized we can do it, there’s no going back, I can’t imagine that silo working ever coming back. [P2]

Conclusion

The voluntary sector in the UK, working closely with local authorities, rapidly responded to the pressures of the pandemic, including supporting the Government directive to implement Community Hubs in each local authority. It was able to do this because of the strong well-established voluntary services infrastructure – even though this has suffered from many decades of significant funding cuts, dismantling of services and rising health inequalities, poverty and deprivation. The documented consequences of pandemic response in the literature are: reduced duplication of effort; shared understanding of customer needs (social and geographical); greatly enhanced partnership working within a culture of delivery ‘at pace’; and greater trust between voluntary services and local authorities/other partners. Many of these documented outcomes are demonstrated in our participants’ experiences.

The concerns for the future noted by our participants were related to the people not accessing services due to isolation or digital exclusion. Organisations were also concerned about sustainability due to short-term funding. Such negative effects of the social marketisation of civil society have been explored in recent research by Murphy et al. (2020, 4) where the following are just some of the documented impacts of the competitive tendering process:

- threats to independence,

- inhibited planning due to funding uncertainty,

- reluctance to criticise or advocate,

- mission drift to accommodate market-based demands, [and]

- working with users or clients most likely to achieve a result rather than those most in need or requiring greater effort.

The trend to marketisation has gained increased momentum since the austerity agenda and the false resilience of David Cameron’s Big Society rhetoric (Yves Pinder 2021). For small voluntary sector organisations, this results in a continual and inefficient hunt for funding just to keep the lights on, rather than harnessing the sustainability they need to plan longer-term.

What was most striking from these interviews was how important each community group is to the people it serves, particularly in times of crisis. This is due to the significance of their distinct service model, discrete skills, and vital unique knowledge of the community. These services stepped up to the needs of their communities, responding to the changing necessities over time, working together to provide holistic, joined-up provision. In addition, they were very clearly best placed to access individuals in need, and groups who were unknown to the local authority due to such issues as digital exclusion. In this way they operated as valuable sinks of information about the community that strengthened the local pandemic response as a whole.

The literature demonstrates the benefit of volunteering for individual wellbeing, as well as community security, cohesion, and identity (Bowe et al. 2021), and much of this is evident in the words of our participants. It is clear, that these services are resilient, enduring, flexible and compassionate in their work – and this has a direct impact on the lives of the people they serve.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Lancaster City Council.