A098 voluntary work in organizations and associations presentation of research results

1. Voluntary work in organizations
and associations
RI World Congress, Session A
Jouni Puumalainen, Researcher
Finnish Central Association for Mental Health/
Rehabilitation Foundation
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2. Background of the research
• Eleven organizations
• Working for persons with substance abuse or mental
health problems
• Funded by Finnish Slot Machine Association
• During 2015-2018
• Three different research:
– 1) more knowledge about the organizations,
– 2) needs of those citizens that the organizations
reach
– 3) voluntary work or peer work in organizations (Jouni
Puumalainen and Päivi Rissanen)
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3. Aim of the third sub-research
• Examine critically concepts of
– voluntary work
– peer work or work as experts of experience
• Examine by questionnaire survey e.g.
- how important the voluntary work is for the
organizations
- what is done as voluntary work
- why is voluntary work done
- how it should be developed
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4. Questionnaires
- Snowball-sampling: Keypersons in the organizations spread the
links to the electronic questionnaires
1) Voluntaries (n=89)
2) Peers or experts of experience (n=76)
3) Personnel about voluntaries (n=27)
4) Personnel about peers or experts of experience (n=60)
For the analysis samples 1 and 2 were combined (n=165) and also
samples 3 and 4 were combined (n=87)
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5. Personnel
• 85 % of respondents were women
• 60 % of respondents were employees
• 44 % say that they have a written plan how to use voluntaries
• 62 % say they give professional guidance to their voluntaries
• 71 % say they have procedures to secure that the voluntaries
do not get exhausted (work overload)
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6. Importance of voluntary work
%
Without them the organization
would not function 30
Very important 49
Rather important 14
Little importance 6
No importance 1
__________________________________
All together (n) 100 (84)
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7. Voluntaries (all together, n=165)
• 63 % of the respondents were women
• Age 21-79 years, mean 53 years
• 53 % on a pension and 31 % in work
• 66 % did voluntary work in a mental health
organization
• 87 % were members of that organization
• 62 % had done voluntary work 3 years or
more, 19 % 10 years or more
• 11 % did voluntary work 20 hours or more in
a week, mean 7 hours
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8. Peers and experts of experience (n=76)
Have you got professional guidance?
%
No 17
Yes, but not enough 26
Yes, enough 57
All together (n) 100 (76)
Have you sometimes felt exhausted when doing voluntary work?
%
No 64
Yes 36
All together (n) 100 (76)
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9. Peers and experts of experience (cont.)
Have you got professional guidance? WHIT Have you
sometimes felt exhausted when doing voluntary work?
(%)
Guidance Exhausted
No Yes All together
No 38 62 100
Yes, but not enough 50 50 100
Yes, enough 79 43 100
All together 64 36 100
p<.010
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10. Future: How should voluntary work be
developed?
Personnel (50 respondents):
- More young people to voluntary work
- More versatile tasks
- Get voluntaries to develop organization (evaluation,
research)
- More support to voluntaries
- More publicity
- More co-operation between organizations concerning
voluntary work
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11. Future: How should voluntary work be
developed?
Voluntaries (109 respondents):
- More responsibility
- More professional guidance
- More education
- More publicity
- More collective events to voluntaries
- Using voluntary work should be more natural in public
sector work (planning, evaluation)
- More respect to voluntary work
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