Mobilising Voluntary Action in the UK: Learning from the Pandemic

Description

This book addresses the urgent policy and practice need for evidence-based considerations to support the recovery from the pandemic and to prepare for future emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the landscape of voluntary action. Some volunteering projects had to be paused, while others were delivered in different ways, but across all four UK nations large numbers of people began volunteering for the first time. This book provides an overview of the constraints and opportunities of mobilising voluntary action across the four UK jurisdictions during the pandemic. Sector experts and academics examine the divergent voluntary action policy frameworks adopted, the state and non-state supported volunteer responses, the changes in the profile of volunteers and the plans to sustain their involvement.

Irene Hardill is Professor of Public Policy at Northumbria University. Jurgen Grotz is Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research at the University of East Anglia. Laura Crawford is Teaching Fellow at the University of Birmingham.

"This is a meticulously researched, insightful and highly readable volume on the far-reaching impact of the pandemic on voluntary action in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland." Paul Chaney, Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) "This engaging, highly readable book provides important insights into variations in voluntary action across the UK's four nations. Whilst focusing on responses to COVID-19, its findings have much wider relevance." Angela Ellis Paine, University of Birmingham