Volunteer to Career
Supported by the Rank Foundation.
A grants and workforce programme to support hospices to train and recruit volunteers into clinical careers.
Supported by the Rank Foundation, these grants are currently closed for applications.
What does Volunteer to Career offer?
Hospice UK’s Volunteer to Career programme awards grants of £10,000 each to up to 10 hospices to support the professional development and recruitment of volunteers considering a career in healthcare.
In addition to the funding grant, Hospice UK and partner charity Helpforce will:
- help each participating hospice to identify and build internal capacity to deliver the work
- help each hospice to find and match interested volunteers from their local communities
- provide a blended learning programme for participating hospice Clinical Leads, who will work within their hospices to mentor the new volunteers
- help with project planning and data collection to build evidence of the value of the project.
In Round 1, we are supporting four hospices to implement the programme. The hospices taking part in Round 2 of the programme will be announced soon.
How does it work?
The volunteers taking part in Volunteer to Career will undertake 60 hours of certificated training over the course of one year.
This training will require support from a dedicated Clinical Lead at their hospice.
By the end of their training, volunteers will be supported onto a career pathway aligned to your hospice’s identified workforce needs i.e. either via a university course, workplace apprenticeship, or paid employment route into eventually becoming a healthcare assistant (clinical band 2 or 3) or a nursing associate (clinical band 4).
Information webinar
On Tuesday 23 July we ran an information webinar hosted by Helpforce, to discuss the Volunteer to Career programme and the grant application process, with staff from Helpforce and Hospice UK.
You can watch a recording of the webinar online now.
View the slides from the webinar.
Is my hospice a good candidate for this programme?
We welcome applications from any hospice that understands the programme and how it will benefit them. If you would like to discuss your hospice's suitability for the programme before you apply, please contact us.
Although not essential, we have identified some key criteria which can help the programme to run successfully:
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We have found that hospices where there are already routes into other roles in the clinical teams are well-placed to integrate the Volunteer to Career model into their hospice.
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It can be helpful if leadership from your hospice Clinical, HR and People, and Education teams have a thorough understanding of the opportunities that this programme brings.
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Hospices with an established pool of volunteers will be in a strong position to identify people to take part in this programme.
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Hospices that work with Further and Higher Educational institutions in their local communities have found that students can be excellent volunteers. Their interests and study experience are often a good match for a hospice clinical career pathway.
Available Funding
Round 2 will award up to 6 grants of £10,000 each.
This is to contribute towards the cost of supporting Clinical Leads to undertake this piece of work. Please note that other expenses arising from the programme (e.g. volunteer expenses) will need to be covered by the hospice.
Deadline and eligibility
Applications for Round 2 of this programme are now closed.
Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful at the end of October 2024.
Eligible organisations are independent adult and children's hospices that are members of Hospice UK and based in the UK, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Find out more
Find out more about hospices that have already benefitted from running the Volunteer to Career programme.
Who is already involved?
Four hospices are participating in Round 1 of our Volunteer to Career programme, launched in July 2024:
- Ardgowan Hospice, Greenock
- Forget Me Not Children's Hospice, Huddersfield
- Compton Care, Wolverhampton
- St Michael's Hospice, Hereford
Three hospices are participating in Round 2 of our programme, launch in November 2024:
- Saint Michael’s Hospice, Harrogate
- St Michael’s Hospice, Hastings
- St Margaret’s Hospice, Somerset
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following organisations for their support for this programme.
Images on this page courtesy of The Centre for Ageing Better.