Equipped to Serve

Preparing volunteers to serve with confidence & integrity.

Volunteer Training

How often do you reinforce the RIGHT Communication Skills?

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Taking some time during every in-service training is a perfect time to get some practice.

If your volunteers know that they will be utilizing these skills during every in-service, they might work harder to utilize the skills in their lives on a daily basis. How else can the RIGHT skills become ingrained and a natural part of serving and caring for others?

I think the most-often used RIGHT skills are reflective listening, Interpretive listening, and good questions.

Here is a suggestion that will reinforce the skills during each in-service without taking up too much time. This exercise will be a quick call and response for each of the 3 skills.

1. Make a sheet/list of statements for each of the RIG communication skills so you easily have them at hand. Sources for statements might be:

  • Exercises from the manual
  • Statements clients have said to you
  • Case Studies from the manual
  • Ask your materials assistance staff or volunteers to give you a list of statements they hear most from the clients they serve.
  • Statements do not necessarily have to relate to pregnancy issues in order to practice the skills but they might be the most helpful to volunteers.

2. The number of the statements you have should match the number of volunteers attending so there is no duplicates for each of the skills

3. Start with reflective listening. Briefly review the How To’s of the skill.

4. The trainer reads the skill, then speaks the sentence out-loud while choosing a volunteer and makes direct eye contact with them. It is that volunteer who must respond using the listening skill correctly. This is better than going systematically down the rows because then volunteers know they only have to listen when it is going to be there turn. When you jump around the room and make eye contact, no one knows when it will be their turn and must always be ready, especially if you tell them they might be called upon more than once. In order to save time you really try not to call on people twice but it keeps them alert and thinking of how to respond if they would be called on again.

5. Repeat this for each of the RIG listening skills. Each volunteer should respond once to each of the RIG skills.

If you have the statements prepared ahead of time and review the skills quickly you should be able to get through RIG in a short amount of time. Be sure and gently correct anyone who does not answer using the skill correctly before moving on to the next person. Often people will ask a question when they should be using reflective or interpretive listening. I usually respond by saying, “That’s a great question and we will get to those real soon but right now we are focusing on _________so give it another try.” It is a gentle way to refocus them to the skill you are practicing.

There is so much to remember and practice as a volunteer with the Pregnancy Center ministry.

Your love and service to them should be helping them to remember and practice the most-important skills so they will better serve the clients God sends to them.

In-service Training for Excellent Client Documentation Skills

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How often do you read through your client intake forms?

There is usually two different parts to a client intake form. One being the statistical information and the other being the narrative description of the volunteer’s interaction with the client. Both are important.

In-services are a great way to explain the importance of accurately filling out the client intake form and the post-session narrative documentation of their client interactions.

We know the statistical information on the client intake form is needed for a variety of reasons.

When training volunteers to gather this information effectively you might consider sharing with volunteers:

  1. Why this information is important and how you use this information
  2. Show them how having this information is important as they begin to build relationship with their client
  3. What information is most important during your time with a client
  4. How to gather this information as a way to begin building relationship rather than just interviewing someone.
  5. Who is gathering this information and how they are doing this?
  6. How do you ask clients to complete the form? What do you tell them about the form? What happens if they leave some information blank?
  7. If clients fill out the intake form themselves, how can volunteers use the information gathered to begin making contact and reducing anxiety

The narrative post-session documentation in a client’s chart is important for many reasons.

  1. Reading the documentation provides a way to supervise and evaluate volunteers on their client interactions without having to actually observe them in person.
  2. How a volunteer documents their interactions demonstrates their knowledge and use of the Seven Fundamentals taught in the training.
  3. Documentation provides you with client information that can help you create case studies for in-service trainings.
  4. The information is important when a client returns for follow-up visits or if they are seen by a different volunteer when they return.
  5. Documentation provides consistency of service and clients will feel seen and remembered by your ministry.
  6. Certain ethical and legal protections must be taken into consideration in case a client asks to read their file or some legal action is taken.

When training volunteers in their post-session narrative documentation you might consider:

  1. Conducting a short role-play and asking volunteers how they would document the session.
  2. Create a quiz or worksheet with examples of good and bad documentation for volunteers to work through and then go over their responses.
  3. Discuss the similarities and differences of the narrative post-session documentation needed in various parts of the ministry such as pregnancy testing and advocacy, material assistance, reproductive loss groups, educational programs, medical services (ultrasound), etc.
  4. Asking specific questions on the documentation form that relate to the training such as:
  • What was her SOS?
  • Where might she have been on the crisis cycle? Explain
  • What were her needs / issues?
  • What resources were discussed?
  • What action plans were discussed?
  • What is the follow up plan?
  • Spiritual Condition – Cultivating – Sowing – Harvesting – Discipling ? Explain.

So much energy is put into client documentation. I hope this helps you get an idea of how all that information and paperwork can help you supervise better and enable volunteers to connect better with their clients, from their first hello.

Writing & Using Case Studies in Volunteer Training

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I like to use Case Studies when training volunteers because:

  • They capture a situation for trainees to respond to.
  • They give trainees some real-world exposure to possible clients.
  • They are a good exercise for putting skills into practice.
  • They allow the trainer to see first-hand if trainees are grasping the skills being taught in the training.
  • They provide a different training activity and can replace some lectures in the training.
  • They provide an opportunity for trainees to work together and, at the same time, get to know one another a little.

As a trainer, writing for a variety of Pregnancy Centers, it is hard to develop Case Studies that are appropriate for all Centers. In the Equipped to Serve training manual I have tried to write Case Studies that are generic enough to use in most Centers. The goal is not to have written the perfect client scenario but to write a scenarios that best help trainees apply the concepts being taught in that section of the training.

If the Case Studies in the manual are so different from your clients, I hope you feel free to write your own Case Studies for those sections of the manual.

What is important in writing your own Case Studies is that:

  1. You provide enough client information in the story so the trainees can apply the skills being taught in that section of the manual.
  2. You provide very clear instructions as to what you are looking for as trainees work on the Case Studies.
  3. Ask trainees to work in groups as many heads are always better than just one and trainees get to see the Case Study processing through a variety of different people’s perspectives.
  4. You continue to use the same or very similar processing questions that are in the Case Studies in the Equipped to Serve Manual. The continuity is important.
  5. You remember the whole purpose of a Case Study is to reinforce a skill or concept you are expecting them to utilize when they are serving clients.
  6. You know what you are expecting to hear from your trainees when you are processing the questions about the Case Study. This is important as the training facilitator to you know where they have gone astray and can guide them to the correct insights and also reinforce when they give you correct answers and provide great insights.

In the revised volunteer training manual I have changed some of the Case Studies and added extra Case Studies submitted to me by other trainers. But as I mentioned above, please feel free to craft your own Case Studies if need be.

The Volunteer’s Navigation Tool

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Photo by Wendelin Jacober from Pexels

Have you ever gotten lost or overwhelmed when serving a client?

Clients can come to the Center:

  • With very complex problems
  • Very abortion-minded
  • With overwhelming circumstances
  • English as their second language
  • Very emotional
  • Closed-down and not saying very much

Often when presented with these situations it is easy to feel overwhelmed and a little lost as to how to proceed. When feeling out of control we tend to jump too quickly to solutions and rush the process. It is at this point we need to pull out our navigation tool – Fundamental #7: The Steps to Crisis Intervention otherwise known as MR FEEF.

How does our navigational tool, MR FEEF, help us in these situations?

The Steps to Crisis Intervention reminds us:

  • to slow down  . . . and breathe
  • that there is a path forward if we follow the road map
  • we must listen and validate feelings before offering solutions
  • we must earn the right to ask deep questions
  • connecting comes before giving advice or solutions
  • we can’t solve all the problems a client might share with us
  • creates good boundaries
  • the decisions is hers to make, we are here to help her think it through
  • there is a purposeful order to the steps to crisis intervention
  • when we spend most of our time on the first two steps the rest of the steps are easier to climb

In other words, it gives us a way forward, a reminder of the skills we need to use to climb the steps to crisis intervention. MR FEEF reminds us to work and pray towards connecting with our client no matter what she brings into the session. It is not about whether we finish climbing all the steps with each client. It’s about climbing the most important steps well (make contact & reduce anxiety) to earn the right to move up to the next steps.

It’s like having a flashlight or lantern to light the way when we are fumbling around in the dark.

How well are your volunteers utilizing the steps to crisis intervention?

Remind them of the road map they have to help them when they are with a client and find themselves overwhelmed, lost and fumbling in the dark.

The 6 Steps to Crisis Intervention spell MR FEEF

How to Recruit and Retain Quality Volunteers

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Do you become frustrated when you spend time conducting a training class but when training is over only half, or less than half, of the attendees end up volunteering?

You get what you ask for, so start by defining what you want.

Start by developing a list of the qualities you are looking for in your volunteers. A short list of qualities might include:

  • Committed
  • Consistent / Faithful
  • Reliable
  • Teachable
  • Aligned with your ministry vision

How do you screen for and educate to these qualities?

You must search for and honor these qualities in all aspects of your volunteer program – recruitment, screening, training, supervision and appreciation. It is especially important in the recruitment and screening phases. It is important to establish expectations and requirements from the very beginning.

Recruitment

  • Your volunteer recruitment materials must keep in mind the qualities you are looking for
  • How do you talk about what you do and how you do it in your recruitment?
  • How can you utilize the actual words of the qualities you are looking for in your recruitment text?

Screening: Interviewing, Job Descriptions and References

Interviewing  
  • The questions you ask in an interview should enable you to see how these qualities have been utilized in other areas of their lives
  • Some sample questions:
    • Where have you volunteered? What were the requirements there? What did you enjoy the most? What was the hardest part of that experience?
    • How have you invested in your own personal growth in the last year?
    • What attracted you to volunteering at the Pregnancy Center?
    • What are you hoping to learn from volunteering with us?
    • What are you most committed to in your life right now?
    • Consistency/Faithfulness is an important quality we are looking for in volunteers. Please share a situation in your life where you were consistent/faithful in the face of adversity.
    • What does being reliable mean to you?
    • Give me an example of when you had to learn something new and how you learned to do that something.
Job Descriptions
  • All of the qualities your are looking for should be reflected in the job description.
    • What time commitment you are looking for – weekly, monthly, yearly?
    • Training required – basic & in-service trainings (Be VERY clear about these.) Include make-up responsibilities if they do not attend the in-services
    • What is their responsibility if they cannot make a scheduled shift?
    • Reading and signing your ministry mission and vision so they are very clear about what you do and how you do it.
References
  • Many of the questions you ask a reference should revolve around the qualities you are looking for.
  • If you are using a written reference, you can ask them to rate the person from 1 to 5 on the qualities. If there are any 1s or 2s you should follow up with a phone call to clarify their answers.
  • If you are using a verbal interview, you can ask them to tell you about a time they have observed the potential volunteer exhibiting these qualities.

Training

  • There should always be responsibility put on the volunteer for knowing and showing that they are applying the fundamentals taught in the training.
  • Tell volunteers how and when they are going to be responsible for knowing and showing what is taught in the training.
  • What happens when volunteers are not teachable or are not capable to be in an advocate position with clients? Will other positions be offered to them?
  • Emphasize the importance of ongoing learning and practice (role-play).

Supervision

  • Hold all volunteers accountable to the standards you established and informed them about.
  • Be a role-model for the qualities you are asking of them.
  • Creatively hold them accountable for the fundamentals.
  • Role-play . . . role-play . . .role-play

Appreciation

  • Appreciate volunteers for the qualities they are exhibiting
  • Honor these volunteer qualities in a special way. Here are a few examples:
    • On their volunteering yearly anniversaries
    • Who have never missed an in-service.
    • Who have logged in the most client hours in the past month, year, etc.
    • Who have never missed a shift in ____ months.
    • Who are always practicing and learning and applying the skills
  • These honors can be in private (flowers, small gifts, etc.) to encourage the person who deserves the appreciation while not making others feel competitive or left out. This privately shows the qualities you value in volunteers and reinforces those qualities and behaviors.
  • Public honors can also be utilized by highlighting them in a newsletter or donor letter, honoring them at a banquet, putting their photos up on a bulletin board in the volunteer room, etc. This publicly shows the qualities you value in volunteers and reinforces those qualities and behaviors.

What qualities are you looking for in your volunteer program? Align all the components of your volunteer program to recruit, screen, train and appreciate for these qualities.

Remember . . . You get what you ask for!