Family First: Volunteer Tracking Location and Hours with Teamup

Volunteer tracking for safety and record keeping with Teamup

Volunteers do good work, and it’s important that they are safe, supported, and able to do their work. If safety is an issue, then so is tracking volunteers in location, appointments, and timing. Tracking volunteer hours is important for record-keeping, and can also help with estimating volunteering needs and resources in the future. 

About Family First

Family First is a local charity which supports families in Ipswich. They match volunteers to local families, who visit them in their homes to listen, support and encourage them to reach their agreed goals. Family First works with all families regardless of age, race, religion or cultural background. Their aim is for parents and carers to increase their confidence, social support networks and mental wellbeing.

The calendar setup and use

Sarah Stapleton, the Service Lead with Family First, shared with us how they use Teamup:

We employ a small number of staff who each work just a few hours each week. On a practical level Teamup allows me to easily have an overview of when my staff are available and what their workload is looking like at any given time. It allows us a way to record annual leave etc. and easily put in regular, repeating appointments.

As the calendar administrator, Sarah makes sure the calendar is set up and used properly. Each volunteer has their own sub-calendar, and has the ability to input their own visits and appointments. In this way, the calendar stays updated accurately without a bottleneck created by one person needing to enter or update all dates and appointments.

Tracking volunteer hours

Tracking volunteer hours is also possible. Each volunteer can input their own appointments and visits. If needed, they can include travel time to and from each location. Then at the end of each week, the volunteer and staff can tally and confirm the total hours for each volunteer.

Volunteer tracking for safety and support

Tracking volunteer hours on the go or in the office

Volunteer tracking is also an important consideration for their safety.

However, for me the best thing is the fact that I have been able to build Teamup into our lone working policy. The safety of our volunteers is obviously extremely important to us and, allowing volunteers to have a system where they can record their visits allows us to know each day who is out and where they are. Policy dictates that they phone in after a visit to let me know they are safe and, if this is not done, this is followed up. Having Teamup allows me to know at a glance who is out and who I should be expecting a call from ensuring no one is missed or forgotten.

The team at Family First uses a simple but effective calendar set-up:

  • Each volunteer has their own individual sub-calendar. This allows Sarah or any other staff member to quickly view who is doing what, on any given day.
  • Each volunteer can enter their own appointments and home visits on their own calendar. This is easy to do with access permission levels. A volunteer can have read-only permission for other volunteer sub-calendars, and modify permission for their own sub-calendar.
  • Volunteers can use Teamup mobile apps to update their appointments or visits on their sub-calendar as needed.
  • Sarah can view each day to see at a glance where each volunteer is supposed to be: who has visits scheduled, where each volunteer is, who needs to check in, etc.

Many thanks to Sarah Stapleton for sharing your story with us, and to everyone at Family First for the good work you do. 

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