Volunteer Certificate Scheme

The aim of the Volunteer Certificate Scheme is to encourage recognition of unpaid work and highlight the role that volunteering can play in personal and career development.

With Southampton City Council’s Training & Employment Initiatives Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS) manage a Certificate Scheme. Groups may nominate volunteers that have given at least 100 hours of high quality volunteering time. Presentations are made by the Mayor twice yearly in National Volunteers’ Week 1-7 June and in January. Groups need to demonstrate best practice and be members of Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS).

Since the scheme’s launch in Southampton in 1991, it has since been adopted by Volunteering Development Agencies, Councils of Community Service and voluntary organisations on a national scale. Volunteers completing at least 100 hours of high standard voluntary work can be nominated to receive a certificate from the Mayor of Southampton. This formal recognition of the work assists particularly those seeking paid work or further education opportunities. It is also a way of thanking volunteers who have done exceptionally well and have shown a great commitment.

To demonstrate the quality of the volunteering, the voluntary organisations involved need to be able to identify areas in which the volunteer has worked well. This will be clearly shown in the accompanying task description and reference, which will act as a record of achievement for the volunteer.

The Certificate Scheme represents many facets of the work undertaken by the Training and Employment Initiatives section in Southampton City Council and Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS) in encouraging and recognising the increase in skills, confidence and personal development that a person can achieve through voluntary work, also the investment in this process that voluntary organisations make.

Below we have made the pack downloadable in Microsoft Word format – to download just click on a suitable link.