Creating Best Practice Guideline for Telecare Distress Centre of Peterboroughs Volunteer Training: Facilitating Community Empowerment

Emily Perry and Shannon Stoute

WHAT IS TELECARE?
The Telecare Distress Centre of Peterborough is a confidential, anonymous call line that is available 24 hours a day. It provides callers with a non-judgement listener, who offers compassion and support.1 The phone lines are manned by volunteers, who are extensively trained in the art of active listening to help callers cope with a variety situations. Training Time Both populations felt that 50 hours of in class training was appropriate to cover the material required for success on the phone line, it was also found that they both thought the on phone mentorship was beneficial. Level of preparedness Volunteers presently on the phone lines found that they were either very or somewhat prepared to be answering calls, and those who just completed training feel somewhat prepared to answer phone calls.

WHO CALLS TELECARE?

Most calls come from Peterborough and Peterborough County. Callers are adults of all ages, many of whom are living alone and looking for emotional support. Problems identified by callers in 2012 included interpersonal, mental health, financial and occupational, and abuse and violence.2 WHO VOLUNTEERS? Telecare is run exclusively by volunteers that go through 50 hours of in class training followed by a 12 hour mentorship on the phone lines. Volunteers continue to participate in ongoing training once a month throughout their time with Telecare. Topics covered in training include active listening, community resources, mental health, suicide workshop, loneliness, grief, and other social issues.3 PROJECT OBJECTIVES

METHODS
Two approaches were used to complete the project. The first involved evaluating the present training program. The methods used for this was participation in the in class training sessions, and providing questionnaires to two different volunteer populations, current volunteers on the phones and those in training now. The second approach consisted of researching volunteer training programs of agencies that provide a similar service to Telecare, to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

Online Training when asked about completing a portion of the training online it was found to be most popular in the 18 24 age group. Agency Research Currently in progress, expected to be completed by November 28 2013.

RECOMMENDATIONS
1. When possible combine topics that are similar into one training session. This could be done with mental health and depression, attachment and mindfulness, loneliness and grief, and issues of poverty and attitudes. 2. Further investigate having the option to complete some portion of the training online, this will be especially important when trying to recruit volunteers from the student population or those that work nights and weekends. 3. Continue to provide training sessions that encourage group interaction, especially the opportunity to participate in different role-play situations. This will help to create a sense of community among volunteers.

FINDINGS
Topics Covered Both groups of volunteers felt that none of the topics covered should be left out, however some observed that it would be possible to combine similar topics into the same session.
Training Topics Current Volunteers Found Most Useful
30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Our goal in completing this project is to provide best practice guidelines for the volunteer training to be implemented by Telecare Peterborough, our objectives are: 1. Identify the variations amongst different training programs in Peterborough and the surrounding area, paying particular attention to their strengths and weaknesses, and how these relate to Telecare training to develop guidelines. 2. To determine the opinion of volunteers on training and use the collected information to determine guidelines for Telecare. 3. Use the developed training guidelines to determine the current efficiency of their training module and possible ways to streamline the process in hopes that volunteers will be able to answer calls successfully and sooner, and that this will help attract more volunteers.

NEXT STEPS
1. Collaborate with training facilitators to streamline presentations and combine topics when applicable. 2. Evaluate the training manual provided to volunteers to ensure that material included effectively meets the needs of those on the phone lines. 3. Identify the possibility of collaboration the training program with other like-minded agencies in the Peterborough area.
References

Active Listening
30

Sucide Workshop

Loneliness

Mental Health

Community Resources

25

Training Topics Current Trainees Found Useful

20

15

10

Addiction

Suicide Workshop

Active Listening

Poverty

Community Resources

1 Telecare Distress Centre of Peterborough. (2013). Retrieved November 14 2013, from http://www.telecarepeterborough.org 2 M. Graham, personal communication, October 3, 2013. 3 M. Graham, personal communication, October 3, 2013.