Welcome to another one of our national award-winning programs that we offer to the community: SHINE for Kids Volunteer Program.

We have 3 geographic areas within our volunteering program:

• Sydney (based in Silverwater)
• Central West (based in Bathurst)
• South Windsor

About our Volunteer Program

As a not-for-profit organisation operating on a small budget, SHINE for Kids would barely exist without the extraordinary work and commitment of our volunteers. The SHINE for Kids Volunteer Program currently has 140 volunteers in the Central West and Sydney.

Volunteers play a crucial role in the successful delivery of our programs and services to children and their carers.

Read about how to join our volunteer program

SHINE for Kids’ ability to assist and support our families and their kids is largely determined by the active participation and commitment of our talented and skilled volunteers. In recent years the Shine for Kids Volunteer Program has received industry awards and external recognition for the work our volunteers do.

Without volunteers, many of our services would be dramatically reduced. To give you an idea:

• Our transports, which escort children into prison to see their parent, would decrease by 40%.
• None of our Occasional Child care Activity Centres would operate.
• Our Drop-in Centre's would cease operations.
• Groupwork activities would be reduced by 75%.
• 25% of Activity and Family days would no longer be offered to the kids and inmates.
• Our Board of Management would not exist.
• Most of our special day trips would be cancelled.
• Our fundraising efforts would be at least halved.
• Our mentoring program would be terminated.
• Our library would barely exist.
• Paid workers would spend valuable time on administration at the expense of advocating for our kids.
• The Toy Boxes, inside key prisons, for long visits for kids and mums would not exist.

Without volunteers and increased funding, it's the kids who lose out!

In short, with the exception of casework, our agency would operate on a dramatically smaller scale. When you consider recent statistics which (underestimate) the number of children effected by parental incarceration, in NSW alone, to be 14,500 and, when you factor in that SHINE for Kids is the only community agency with a specific mandate to assist these children, then, it's an all-too-chilling picture.

So when we say volunteers are critical to the success of SHINE for Kids ability to deliver programs to families and children, we really mean it. In recognition of this, we employ a Coordinator of Volunteers to manage and nurture our Volunteer Program. In 2003, our Coordinator of Volunteers received an Employee of the Year Award from Employers First for her efforts in expanding our Volunteer Program into a dynamic, nurturing, involved, meaningful and fulfilling volunteer experience.

We don't offer a typical volunteer program and so we are not looking for the typical volunteer either.

We don't offer a typical volunteer program

• Most of our volunteer roles involve directly working with children one on one, or in small groups often on a long term basis.
• Our skilled volunteers are able to choose to take on additional program management or coordinating responsibilities- in order for more children, and families, to benefit from our unique services.
• The importance we place on volunteer reliability is paramount.
• Many of our volunteer roles carry with them responsibility. In some areas, if the volunteer doesn't turn up on the day, then the children go without, because the activity will have to be cancelled that day.
• The work we do with children usually involves behind the scenes red tape specific to individual children and prisons, and it is not always possible to arrange a last minute re-scheduling- and this is one of the reasons why we need our volunteers to be reliable.
• It's individual children and families who rely on our services and they live in all parts of NSW, therefore, our volunteers get the opportunity to travel around the countryside.
• Our Coordinator of Volunteers will create customised volunteer roles to suit your professional skills, thus, developing a meaningful volunteer experience for you and which assist in building the capacity of our organisation.
• We are the only organisation in Australia whose sole purpose is to help children who have a parent in prison.

All volunteers are interviewed and screened to ensure their suitability, and not all volunteer applications are accepted.

What our volunteers never do

• Volunteers never sit around all day answering the phones, or worse, waiting for the phone to ring.
• Volunteers never lick and stamp envelopes for a mass mail out.
• Volunteers never spend hours doing data entry, filing or photocopying.
• Volunteers are never requested to turn up en masse, where it doesn't matter if the odd one or two volunteers don't show. At SHINE for Kids, turning up does matter, because it's the kids who miss out if a volunteer is unreliable or doesn't make it at the last minute.