Volunteer Reading Help Case Study

Client Profile and Issue

Volunteer Reading Help (VRH) is a national charity that helps disadvantaged children develop a love of reading and learning. Trained volunteers, of which there are around 2,200, read, play and talk with the children on a weekly basis. VRH work in primary schools, but also provide some services to children in care.

VRH initially approached the Whitehouse Consultancy over concerns regarding funding. Ongoing uncertainty in this area meant that VRH was facing great difficulty in planning for the future. Furthermore, it was vital that VRH’s profile as an organisation was raised to ensure steadier funding streams in the future.

Our Strategy

Following a comprehensive audit of the existing policy environment, Whitehouse launched a programme designed to raise VRH’s profile not only with Parliamentarians, but also with key officials in the Department for Education & Skills. This included liaising with supportive MPs in order to table Parliamentary Questions designed to highlight the vital role the voluntary sector, and in particular VRH, plays with regards to the delivery of key Government programmes such as ‘Every Child Matters’. A meeting programme was designed to open a constructive dialogue with key officials in the Department for Education & Skills and other key bodies such as Ofsted and the NASUWT.

In light of an influential report from the powerful Education & Skills Select Committee on Teaching Children to Read, great effort was expended in engaging with such key stakeholders as Jim Rose, Head of the Independent Review into the Early Teaching of Literacy. As well as maintaining regular contact in this area, VRH also submitted evidence to a number of key inquiries such as the Public Accounts Committee inquiry on Working with the Voluntary Sector.

Whitehouse has also been involved in aiding local VRH branches to foster better relationships with their local elected officials. This has led to a number of beneficial meetings and improved local support.

Outcome

VRH now have an extremely good relationship with the Department for Education & Skills and have secured extended funding. VRH are also currently collaborating with the Department on the upcoming consultation on Looked-After Children.

The submission of evidence to various inquiries and maintenance of regular contact has lead to favourable mentions for VRH in, amongst others, the final report of the Rose Review which describes the VRH programme as “imaginative and well-established”.

VRH is in the process of developing a competency framework for non-teaching staff with the support of key stakeholders and The Whitehouse Consultancy will work with VRH to ensure political tensions are dealt with as they arise.

VRH local branches continue to foster good relationships with local representatives, which have included MPs visiting some of the schools that VRH work with in order to see volunteers at work.