Case Study: Voluntary Centre Services
Voluntary Centre Services Finds Innovative Ways The matrix Standard Can Help Their Communities
Voluntary Centre Services (VSC) supports the voluntary and community sector across Lincolnshire, helping individuals and organisations achieve their goals, foster partnerships, and build stronger communities.
Their mission focuses on employability, enhancing health and well-being, and promoting volunteering and community engagement.
The VCS team first achieved accreditation to the matrix Standard back in 2007 and have maintained their accreditation since then.
VCS CEO Ben Rollet and Dianne Slapp, Lincoln’s Strategic Lead for VCS, joined us to outline how they work the matrix Standard. They explain how it’s helping them grow and build exciting new ways to use their IAG processes to help many more volunteers and clients.
What Brought You To The matrix Standard?
Dianne explained that she had some experience with the framework from her prior work in libraries with the County Council. She saw its applicability to community support as being even more relevant.
For VCS, Ben and Dianne recognised the matrix Standard as the way to quality-assure the information, advice, and guidance (IAG) used to support their volunteers and community clients. Dianne confirmed:
“It was all about quality. We knew we were doing significant work through the Volunteer Centre, particularly around employability and volunteering and the matrix Standard is a way of being recognised for that.”
What Objectives Did ‘The matrix Standard’ Help You Achieve?
The team explained that the underlying objective of improving their IAG processes was to enable the growth of their service. Since achieving the matrix Standard, the team has expanded their scope beyond Lincoln City Centre into three further districts and has expanded to 35 staff from the initial nine.
“All of the support that we provide is based around those principles of the matrix Standard and built on what we initially delivered through the volunteer centre. So, the matrix framework has supported us as we’ve expanded.
What About Continuous Improvement?
Ben verified this aspect of using the matrix Standard, commenting:
“It’s given us a framework for delivering support and advice. But it’s continuous improvement we’re quite conscious of at the minute, not only for business as usual but also to make sure we can evolve as an organisation, adapt to the outside environment and find new opportunities.”
Dianne added:
“It’s always been around continuous improvement, so the framework has been a useful tool for critical thinking, bringing in change, and making significant improvements.”
Examples include how VCS is exploiting digital technologies and making much better use of case studies to give accounts of the positive impacts of VCS on volunteers and clients.
So, What Results Have the Matrix Standard Helped Bring?
Ben described how the Good practice in the matrix Standard had strengthened volunteer retention, acquisition, and development of the service by involving volunteers in the decision-making processes within VCS. In turn, this has helped them to attain new employability contracts and other funding.
Dianne echoed this, adding:
“Partners recognise it because it’s a significant accreditation. It gives us credibility, particularly as we are very small, but growing. It proves our offering has quality. As important, it shapes the volunteer centre interventions we have with people.”
Social Prescribing Is A New Area VCS Are Using The matrix Standard…
Social Prescribing is at VCS was first introduced in 2017 and branded as ServiceNow. This approach connects individuals to community resources to help people engage with their communities to enhance their quality of life. The service addresses social isolation, confidence, and self-care issues via a team of volunteer Social Prescribing Link Workers.
Ben explained why they decided to use the matrix Standard in this space:
“Everything we’ve received from NHS England and our NHS partners is medically focused. Looking at how you can embed simplicity of the matrix Standard for social prescribing would be very useful for organisations that don’t necessarily have it as embedded as much as we do.
Dianne sees further benefits:
“I think it’s fair to say there’s a really good synergy between the volunteer centres and social prescribing. So there’s a lot of referral both ways where it’s seen volunteering would really benefit that person.”
This is a new and significant use of the matrix Standard, which is making it easier for volunteers in the community to deliver Social Prescribing. It has the potential to create highly beneficial social impacts on personal well-being and the Lincolnshire society and economy.
So Overall, How Do You Feel The matrix Standard Has Helped You?
As well as the core organisational benefits, Ben outlined the credibility the accreditation has brought:
“In the future, we might be working alongside organisations like colleges, universities so the matrix Standard demonstrates the quality of information, advice and guidance services that we provide.”
Dianne envisages the matrix Standard as helping to expand the county council’s IAG services and gaining further funding and opportunities.
“My team is working in partnership with VCS now. We’re looking at how we embed these IAG principles and share what we’ve done. So when we’re looking to deliver skills and advice, the matrix Standard fits in perfectly with what we’re trying to achieve here.”
In Summary…
Thanks to Dianne and Ben. It’s fantastic to see how VCS has embraced the matrix Standard and is creating superb results for their service, volunteers, and community.
Most significant is how the team use the framework to deliver social prescribing.
Indeed, the matrix Standard team is working with the VCS team to produce a new social prescribing framework so that other organisations can benefit from the best practices pioneered in Lincolnshire.
It shows how well-conceived IAG processes can profoundly impact the core organisation and the wider community.
Well done to the VCS team, and we look forward to working with you on our social prescribing framework.
If you want to know more about how the matrix Standard can help your organisation’s IAG processes, call our team on 01423 229665 or email us at matrixStandard@growthco.uk
Have Questions?
If you want to know more about how matrix Standard can help your organisation’s IAG processes, book in a call with a member of our team:
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