Survey Volunteers
- Survey volunteers about their needs and issues and how they would like to receive on-going education & training. Try and find out their opinion on getting training via:
- In-person training at the Center (best days & times)
- Email lessons and worksheets
- Virtual meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, etc.
- You can create surveys on platforms like Google Forms that you can email to volunteers and they can respond online and send back the survey
- Informal survey by asking volunteers about topics for in-service while they are at the Center
- Using the survey results, decide on how often you are scheduling in-service training and the topics and publish the dates and topics a year ahead of time.
- Send reminders about the scheduled in-services one-month out, one week out, and two-days before the actual in-service.
Team Building
- Getting to know you icebreakers so volunteers from different shifts and positions get to know one another better
- Team building interactive exercises
- Sharing of personal needs and issues and prayer time for what is shared
- Everybody works on a project together that would bless another ministry in your town that serves women and children.
- Have a panel discussion or Q&A with board members for the volunteers to get to know them.
Seven Fundamentals & Other ETS Content
- Review and take an in-depth focus into a fundamental volunteers struggle with
- Pick an experiential exercise from the Leader’s Manual
Client Issues
- Role-play and processing the role-plays
- How to effectively make transitions for clients between the various services and different staff & volunteers in the ministry to maintain connection.
- Prayer time for clients
- Take a deep dive into
- Profile of A Woman with an Unplanned Pregnancy article
- Talking about abortion methods with clients
- Negative Test
- Evangelism
- Everyone come prepared to discuss a difficult client.
- What was difficult about the client visit?
- What went well?
- What could you have done differently?
Books & Films
- There is a list of books and films here this website
- Show clips from several movies that emphasize a certain training concept and discuss the clips
- Watch a controversial or pro-choice film and help your volunteers to process their thoughts and feelings and what they can learn from the film.
Post Abortion Issues
- Have women who have been through you post-abortion group share their experience with the volunteers
- Review the literature you have for clients and how to bring up the subject with a client and when it is appropriate
- When talking about the ministry, how to be sensitive to women who might be post-abortive
- Have post abortion group leaders conduct a workshop for volunteers
Legal Issues
- Have a lawyer come in and talk about legal issues
- Importance of confidentiality
- Documentation
Statistics
- Take a deep dive into your Center’s statistics with the Volunteers
- Why are statistics collected?
- What can you learn about the Center from looking at the statistics?
- Where are you this year in comparison to last year?
- How do the statistics relate to your mission statement?
Language & Culture
- Importance of language in the counseling room
- Understanding LGBTQ issues. Bring in a speaker from your community that can help your volunteers understand these complex issues.
- How to talk about the Pregnancy Center to your social network
- Black Lives Matter and how to be anti-racist – read books and articles and invite lots of discussion. Begin to look at racist thoughts, systems and language that you might not have been aware of in how your ministry is organized..
- Bring in a speaker who can educate volunteers about the cultures and age-groups represented in your client base. Look for other organizations or ministries that work with this people group
Based on your feedback, next month I will explore the three in-service training options with some sample lessons plans and materials for each format.
- In-person training
- Email lessons and worksheets
- Virtual meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, etc.
Please let me know what your volunteers struggle with and the difficulties you have with organizing and developing curriculum for in-service training in the comments below.
You can download a PDF of these ideas here.