Orientation and Training: You’ve got Volunteers!! Now What?

You now have your volunteers - you've done the screening. You've clarified the expectations, tasks and scope of the volunteer role with each volunteer. And you've shared and reviewed the policies and procedures to make sure things run smoothly with them. You can probably guess by the title of this page what the next steps are… that’s right! Orientation and training.

What, you may ask, is the difference between orientation and training? We’re so glad you asked!

Feedback from the Field

Orientation and Training Tips and Tricks

“Have food during any session”
“Give them resources – handouts, binders, folders, USB’s with information on them”
“Send materials out before the training so volunteers can read the manual and watch any videos that supplement the training before they come.”
“Make sessions interactive and fun”
“Don’t re-invent the wheel. There are lots of resources in the system.”
“We tried doing training online, but we couldn’t get a good handle on the volunteers and moved back to face-to-face training. Even though our volunteers have reached the training stage, it still gives us more information about them and helps us match them with a learner.”
“We are developing smaller workshops volunteers can take after their initial one – each focused on a different topic like reading, writing, ELL, etc.”
“We do an initial training of six to nine hours and then provide PD for volunteers every few months. The topics come from the feedback we get from them and if we don’t have the expertise, we look at who we can bring in that does. Sometimes, we even have volunteers with the knowledge and they have been willing to put on a workshop!”
“We are working on e-learning and webinars for our volunteers so the upfront, face-to-face commitment doesn’t have to be as much.”
“Send them to trainings in the system so you don’t have to do it all.”
“The Government of Alberta has a great board development course”

Orientation is about getting your volunteers familiar with your organization specifically. It may happen from first contact with a volunteer, right up to a formal session (one-on-one or group). It may include:

touring your office
expanding on their role as a representative of your organization
finishing paperwork
delving deeper into the policies and procedures
explaining the paths of communication and support (covered in the next section)
explaining emergency procedures
showing how their time helps your organization

Use this guided ‘Volunteer Orientation Checklist ’ when planning your orientation with volunteers.

Training is developing the skills your volunteers need to competently do the role they’ve been assigned. It may include:

formal training like tutor, adult and family literacy training, or something from Rural Routes
attending events like the Literacy and Learning Symposium or other regional or online professional development
videos or webinars
mentoring or coaching them in a specific role

Here is a ‘Volunteer Training Checklist’ to get you started planning your own training session for your volunteers.

When orienting or training volunteers, keep in mind:

Anything the volunteer absolutely needs to know to get started.
A clear purpose for what you are doing. Ask yourself, why this particular piece at this particular time?
Information that can wait until later so they aren’t overwhelmed.
Volunteers are adult learners too – the Adult Learning Principles we apply to our foundational learners are just as relevant here. (See this blog post on the CALP Portal for a refresher on the principles https://calp.ca/blog/adult-learning-principles.htm).
You don’t have to do it all! There are opportunities that have already been developed by others in the CALP system and even in your community that are available to you.

"We do a one-hour orientation [during screening] to let the prospective volunteer think about the commitment, then we offer training and support." - CALP Practitioner

"There is just too much information to cover in training itself, so I organize a binder to follow the same outline as training and at the end of each section...I give them a list of what handouts they have to supplement that section. That way if they need or want more information on that specific topic, they have somewhere to look." - CALP Practitioner

“We access training outside our organization as it saves time, have more people than just me training them and the volunteers enjoy hearing different ideas.” – CALP Practitioner

Activity – We talk about Adult Learning Principles in relation to our foundational learners, but they really apply to all adults who are in a learning situation. As you are planning your orientation and training sessions, identify how you can incorporate these principles to make the learning resonate with your volunteers.

Read more about Adult Learning Principles from Emily Robinson Leclair’s blog post.

Resources:

Literacy Alberta (2007). Creating Learning Partners. This is a comprehensive training manual developed by literacy practitioners for training adult learning tutors.

Rural Routes provides on-site tutor training for English Language instruction. Check their list of workshops for CALP staff and volunteers.

CLN provides a Training Your Tutors training for CALP staff based on the Creating Learning Partners training manual.