On 16 and 22 June, ImproVal partners organised a series of three webinars on the topic of learning new skills in volunteering and validation of non-formal and informal learning (VNFIL).
Volunteers develop competences through their experience that are essential for their personal and professional development. Volunteering is one of the various environments where non-formal and informal learning happens, hence it is crucial to support volunteers in valuing the competences that they acquire. The health and economic crisis calls for more transversal skills, adaptability, problem solving, sense of initiative, and online group facilitation. In the current context, those skill sets are put into test to cope with new challenges (lock down, social distancing, slowdown of economic and social activities, travel restrictions). What are the lessons learned that we can use in our daily work to improve competence development and validation in volunteering?
Webinar 1: Volunteering in time of crisis: what lessons learned? (16 June 2020)
Webinar 2: Discussion on European initiatives for VNFIL in volunteering (16 June 2020)
Webinar 3: VNFIL policies and volunteering: what can policy-makers do? (22 June 2020)
(the first 5 minutes are missing)
Others
There are dozens of tools for validating volunteers’ skills. Are they good and what would make them better? Have they been helpful to you? Tell us about your experiences!
ImproVal partners did a 90-minutes Webinar on validation tools in the voluntary sector on the 13th of June 2019. After a short presentation of the project and its initial findings, 4 guest speakers presented their tools and answer questions from the audience.
ImproVal partners co-published a new study which aims to discover whether and how volunteers and voluntary organisations have been able to use the outcomes of validation.
On 29-30 of October, partners from 5 countries met in Helsinki to kick off the ImproVal project, which, over the next two years, will focus on improving validation in the voluntary sector. Partners shared their experiences from previous validation projects.