Welcome to Get InVOLved Norfolk

Inclusive Volunteering Learning Community On the back of the recent Report and Recommendations for Inclusive Volunteering: Volunteering For Health Summary and the subsequent conversations at the webinar, we're inviting those with professional or lived experience of Health Inequalities and Volunteering to an Inclusive Volunteering Learning Community so we can better develop the inclusive volunteering practice that volunteers with health inequalities tell us they need. The group will be peer led & meet for an hour every couple of months to help co-produce the learning or support we need. Both lived and professional experience will be central to us moving forward. Our aim is to address the Key Recommendations from the Report in the link above; identifying what we need support with and where we might have resources (i.e. toolkits, templates, guides etc) that can be shared with each other - generating some practical solutions for inclusive volunteering. We might look at training needs, clear descriptors/inclusive comms, support resources, social bonding, co-produced volunteering or anything else you find relevant. A person-centred approach will mean different types of materials/resources for different people and their support needs. Please contact me to join us or to ask further questions: Cata.Parrish@voluntarynorfolk.org.uk

How can volunteering be more inclusive? As part of the national and regional Volunteering for Health programme, Norfolk & Waveney CICs and charities are working with people with health inequalities to explore and address their barriers and enablers to volunteering, during 2025-26. We are working specifically with neuro divergent people including those with Learning Disabilities, autism and other types of neuro-diversity, as well as young people with care experience. We've been helping to co-produce supported volunteering and volunteering-readiness projects with participants and organisations to really understand what helps them to volunteer, and what stops them. We gathered the learning from the first round of projects and share the Key Findings below. We also begin to discuss how we can best develop good inclusive volunteering during a webinar, linked below. Read our latest Reports and Recommendations on Inclusive Volunteering at : Get InVOLved Innovation Fund | Get Involved Skills Watch the webinar where we launched the Recommendations and shared the learning about making volunteering more inclusive from the Volunteering for Health Innovations projects in Norfolk & Waveney: https://youtu.be/32kS8LOc5Hg Read about the specially commissioned Community Voices project which documents the conversations with young people from care and their communities, and their thoughts on volunteering: Get InVOLved Innovation Fund | Get Involved Skills Coming Up....what happens now? How do we respond, as the VCFSE and Health Sectors to the Recommendations that people with Health Inequalities have told us?

If you feel like you could do with increasing your employability and volunteering skills, and you're autistic, Learning Disabled or otherwise neuro-divergent, Headway Suffolk & Norfolk have something for you. As one of the Get Involved Innovations Fund projects, Headway Suffolk and Norfolk are offering group and1:1 support to get you in to volunteering roles where you can increase your skills and experience. This experience is often really helpful when applying for paid employment. Headway are offering help with Improving your skills and confidence, understanding your strengths CV writing and applications Interview preparation Matching you with voluntary roles. Please contact Helen at helenmfairweather@headwaysuffolk.org.uk for further information about days, times and anything else you may want to know.