What challenge inspired this recipe?
At the start of their ESC activity, the volunteers have to get acquainted with a new environment. Between “coordinators/supervisors/mentors…, they are often confused with the “Who is Who” within their project environment.
They might also feel lost when they need to receive support for health or, worst, for emergency problems.
So, in term of support by also in terms of risks management, it is very important to ensure they know whom to address in case of needs.
We always took care to provide them with up-to-date and accessible contacts (Name / phone number / email address). But, between the contacts mentioned in an email or an activity agreement (your tasks supervisor is…) ; the ones told along a face-to-face meeting (“hello, I am your mentor…) and the ones sticked on the kitchen fridge (“Firemen : …), the information could often be lost.
That is why, from now, we make sure all our volunteers get an up-to-date list thanks to the ESC Buddy application. Obviously, this does not avoid to share information along human meetings and to keep seeing the door of a fridge as a valuable info-desk. We never do enough when we do not want people feel isolated.
Ingredients :
This practice resquests the organisation to be ESC Buddy user.
Volunteers must have a smartphone and need to download the application.
Step by step guide
In back-office (via a website), we manage a list of contacts related to the different ESC activities we support in different locations.
We manage a contact page, which is a table that centralizes all the organization’s contacts.
This table includes the following information for each contact:
– Contact category: there are 4 categories for contacts to simplify classification. General,
– Emergency contact, health issue and lodging.
– Contact label: it is the free field available to give an easy-to-understand contact description
– Contact name
– Contact email
– Contact phone number
– Quick actions to edit or delete contact
In back office also, we assign the needed contacts to each volunteer hosted.
With ESC Buddy app, installed on his/her smartphone, the volunteer has a contact page, that shows the contact information needed during the project. One can press on an email address or a phone number to directly reach the person.
Before you start cooking, keep in mind…
The support organisation needs to have clear internal guidelines to organize and keep up-to-date its contacts page.
It needs to assign properly the contacts to the volunteer.
© ESC Buddy
