55 pp. / Training resources for volunteer facilitators of grandparent discussion groups; Grandparents Raising Grandchildren / Grandparents-raising-grandchildren discussion groups may conduct their meetings by a) focusing on issues that members suggest and/or b) choosing from among a list of critical topics that are common issues to most grandparents. Sometimes, discussion group facilitators want help identifying topics that are both reliable and educational. To fill the need for conversation-starting topics, we have provided a series of discussion topics for a facilitator's reference. These discussion topics have been gathered from KKONA's experience listening to the issues grandparents bring up about raising grandchildren. Some of the best group discussions introduce a topic after grandparents have attended a related workshop or training that allows grandparents to process information that they have heard or read. Following through with a discussion topic will help the group more deeply explore the issue and gather grandparents' ideas. The themes of the discussion topics include legal issues, relationship issues, discipline, schools, accessing social services and recordkeeping. There are eighteen topics. The sources for these materials include research and parenting materials as well as practical recommendations gathered from discussion groups. As you use these sheets, remember that they are intended to spark discussion and give you some reliable references. The sheets are not meant to be a step-by-step method for conducting your discussion groups nor do they provide in-depth information.

Zoos and museums utilize docents, or volunteer educators, to help educate and entertain visitors through live animal demonstrations. Preparing volunteers to handle live animals is complex because volunteers must learn animal handling techniques, emergency protocols, interpretive material, be able to simultaneously show and monitor the animal, talk about it, take visitor questions, and be aware of safety concerns. Zoos are held accountable for animal welfare as a priority as well as volunteer and visitor safety.This study investigated barriers to preparing adult volunteers to handle live animals at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona. Adult docents and training staff members were interviewed about their perceptions of barriers from the previous year's animal handling training. Ten individual docent interviews, two docent focus groups, and four staff member interviews provided information about animal handling training challenges.Barriers included the resistance to change; specifically volunteers needed to recognize why changes in protocols were necessary so they would support changes. Volunteers expressed the desire to be part of the change with staff members rather than having protocols delivered to them. Miscommunication was a second barrier, originating from lack of consistent communication systems and volunteers feeling left out of the change process. Another barrier was volunteers' perception of authority in that volunteers invested time questioning staff about program changes based on staff qualifications rather than utilizing their time working with the animals. A fourth barrier was that volunteers shared that they felt pressure to perform or else they feel as though they failed part of their volunteer job. Finally recognizing that volunteers learn in different ways was a fifth barrier and many volunteers suggested the need to address a variety of learning styles.Adult learning theory provided a theoretical framework from which the barriers could be investigated. Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (1984) suggests that volunteers need to have animal handling training lessons presented with different teaching techniques or styles. Investing time into training staff about learning theories and teaching techniques may circumvent struggles with volunteers learning new techniques.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

The problem of this study was to determine if pre-training of volunteers working in special education classes for orthopedically handicapped and multihandicapped students makes a difference in their classroom effectiveness. The purposes of this study were two-fold. The first was to develop a training program for volunteers working in special education classes for orthopedically handicapped and multihandicapped students. The second was to determine the effectiveness of the training program.

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This article focuses on volunteerism in the social work field. Volunteerism phenomenon is booming in the Czech Republic; however, due to our historical development it lags behind Western countries. For this reason, this article conveys the management of volunteerism in Germany where it is directly linked to organization's management principles. I have broken down this topic into recruitment and selection of volunteers, their training, evaluation and rewards for their activities and into the coordination of volunteer activities. The aim of this study is based on the German system that can be passed on to the Czech setting in form of recommendations to individual areas of volunteerism management including proposals for more effective supervision of volunteers for Czech volunteer centers/organizations. The theoretical element of this manuscript is extracted from scholarly journals and articles including information from Czech and foreign literature concerning volunteerism circumstances in the Czech Republic and Germany. The practical element was accomplished in Freiwilligen-Zentrum Aachen and in Freiwilligenagentur Impuls Dusseldorf. At the volunteer center in Aachen, I brought together diverse combinations of interview methods with the volunteers' Coordinator, observations and study of the...