Abstracts


Joanna Ozarowska    
Dublin City University - DCU in the Community    
www.dcu.ie/community
joanne.ozarowska@dcu.ie    

Student Volunteering in the Community - DCU Case Study   

In Ireland, as elsewhere, student volunteering takes many different forms but everywhere it is on the increase. We are reaching the stage where a steep change from within universities will be needed to create the capacity to allow this wave of enthusiasm for civic or community engagement to flourish. To ascertain the picture ‘on the ground’ as it were, DCU in the Community, jointly with DCU Students' Union conducted a small scale survey at DCU with follow up qualitative interviews. This presentation will first briefly outline the results of the survey under several headings:
1. demographics and characteristics of respondents
2. DCU student volunteering experience (motivations, causes, activities, areas of life volunteering activity improved)
3. Barriers to student volunteering
4. What HEIs can do to encourage more students to volunteer
The presentation will then outline a suggested model for expressing the value of volunteering in monetary terms (Socially Modified Economic Value).  Finally, the presentation will look to the future and make some recommendations.


Muriel Grenon    
Cell EXPLORERS NUI Galway    
www.cellexplorers.com
muriel.grenon@nuigalway.ie    
@cellexplorers and @murielgrenon

What do they get out of it? Investigating the impact of volunteering in science outreach on undergraduate science students   

Cell EXPLORERS (CE) is an outreach and public engagement initiative from the School of Natural Sciences of the National University of Ireland Galway. The programme promotes molecular and cellular biology and the biological and biomedical research that takes place in the school. Under current funding from Science Foundation Ireland, CE is expanding nationally to establish teams in other higher education institutes throughout Ireland.

Under the CE model, volunteer staff or students of the institution engage members of the public in hands on science. CE activities facilitate low demonstrator to participant ratios (1:6), facilitating real interactions between children/families and scientists. In addition to studying the impact that CE has on members of the public, we are interested in investigating the motivations, expectations and experiences of the CE volunteers.

The volunteer component constitutes 80% of the active CE team and approximately 70% of volunteers are students. Pre and post volunteering questionnaires are used to gather data on the background of the volunteers and their experience of volunteering with CE.

Gaining the ALIVE certificate (the NUI Galway presidential award for volunteering), the opportunity to try something new that can be added to a CV and the development of transferable skills are all motivators for volunteers to get involved. However, the main motivation for the volunteers is the opportunity to promote and talk about something they are interested in and feel passionate about: Science. Volunteers felt that they gain communication and teaching skills as well as confidence. Importantly 86% of the respondents believe that their time volunteering with CE will help them in their studies or career.

Patricia Owens
Gaisce - The President's Award
www.gaisce.ie
powens@gaisce.ie

Does participation in Gaisce - The President's Award enhance psychological well-being?

Gaisce – The President’s Award is a three-tiered personal development programme for young people between the ages of 15 and 25 years. Combining self-directed challenges and supervision by an adult volunteer, participants set and achieve a series of personal, physical and community challenges at Bronze, Silver or Gold level. They also undertake an adventure journey and at Gold level, a residential project is required.

In 2010, the Gaisce council explored the impact of participation in Gaisce on young people through independent doctoral research by Dr. Niamh Clarke-MacMahon for her PhD degree in Psychology in UCD. It is the first research to examine whether participation in Gaisce – The President’s Award acts as a catalyst for the enhancement of positive psychological attributes and whether the programme meets the inclusion criteria to be termed a Positive Youth Development Programme. The Positive Youth Development movement emerged in America in response to the rising juvenile crime rates in the 1950s and 1960s.

The study compared male and female Gaisce participants with a control group of male and female community-based young people. To obtain a comprehensive and inclusive study, a mixed methods approach was employed using both qualitative and quantitative research methods including standardised questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. It involved a mixed gender group at Bronze and Gold level pre-participation and post-participation. Comparisons were also made with a control group of non-participants.

The research adopted a positive psychology strengths-based approach in contrast to the traditional clinical psychological deficits-based model. The findings identifies that participation significantly improved levels of hope, self-esteem, happiness and psychological well-being for young people and suggests that those with greater psychological need benefit most from participation in Gaisce - The President’s Award.

Cecilia  Dal Bon
University of Padova
www.unipd.it/en
cecilia.dalbon@cmela.it
Introducing the Volounteer National Civil Service at the University of Padova, Italy

I'll introduce how the Volunteer National and Regional Civil Service works in Italy and I’ll describe how the University of Padova, according to its basic principles of the University Of Padua as the promotion of
a culture based on universal values such as human rights , peace , safeguarding
environment and international solidarity ( Statute of the University , Chapter I , Art . 1 ) promotes projects of National Civil Service ( since 2001 ) and the Regional Civil Service ( since 2007 ) inside and outside the university.

Philip Mudge and Ruth Powell
Comhlamh
www.comhlamh.org
philip@comhlamh.org    
The Golden Triangle: international volunteer programmes that support partner communities, provide meaningful experiences for volunteers and support the development of volunteer sending agencies

The Comhlamh Code of Good Practice for Volunteer Sending Agencies has been developed in consultation with returned development workers and volunteers, volunteer sending agencies and partners in the global south and is recognized internationally as the most comprehensive set of standards for international development focused volunteering. Comhlamh has recently launched the supporter category for organizations (like universities) that do not actually send volunteers but have an active interest in the development of standards that focus on the needs of the partner community, the volunteer experience and the sustainability of the sending agency. The presentation will look at the history and structure of the CoGP and opportunities for the third level sector to contribute to its ongoing development maintaining and improving standards in international volunteering.

Lorraine Tansey
NUI Galway
www.nuigalway.ie/alive
alive@nuigalway.ie
ALIVE – NUI Galway’s Student Volunteering Programme Student Volunteering at NUI Galway: Our Research Approach

NUI Galway’s ambitious programme ALIVE – A Learning Initiative and Volunteering Experience – was established in 2003 to enable student volunteering, captures the learning from voluntary effort and partner community off campus and well as on campus nonformal civic engagement activities. Both quantitative and qualitative research strategies have helped to steer and inform the programme as it has grown to 300 community partners and 1,000 student participants in 2016. This paper will outline the research plan from inception noting the theoretical framework and literature reviews. Opportunities for the future research dimensions to the programme will be shared.