Volunteer Boundaries

What happens if a volunteer asks you to do something extra while you’re picking up their request? Maybe it’s a prescription pick up following a medical appointment and you have time. Or, maybe it’s a trip to the grocery store or help with a light house project and it exceeds your capacity for that day for whatever reason. Regardless, maintaining boundaries is an important part of volunteering with IVC.

In addition to protecting our volunteers, boundaries serve as a way to assure an appropriate level of care for care receivers.

If a care receiver is contacting a volunteer directly instead of processing their requests through IVC, the care receiver's record may not reflect their level of need. This may hinder timely access to more in-depth services down the road.

It’s also crucial for IVC to track each individual request for the purpose of retaining insurance and funding - which keeps our doors open so we can continue serving care receivers.

(as defined by The National Volunteer Caregiving Network)

Here's a SIMPLE SCRIPT you can use:

"IVC's policy is to direct each request through the office. As an IVC volunteer I'm responsible for following this process. I'm happy to fill as many official requests as my schedule allows. It's actually to your benefit for IVC to track how many requests you need filled so they understand the scope of your needs and can determine if there are resources and services available beyond what we're able to offer. Thank you for understanding."