Framework summary

This summary highlights the key findings from our research and questions for you to reflect on when developing or enhancing the way you involve families in volunteering.

Understanding how families engage

Identifying how to involve family volunteers

Creating and enhancing pathways for families

Enabling families to balance volunteering with life

Making family volunteering inclusive

Balancing risk management and inclusion in volunteering

Maximising the impacts of family volunteering

More about the research

Our research included:

An evidence review – a search of existing literature on family and volunteering. We found 232 relevant documents. Read the full review report and blog.

Secondary analysis of the Time Use Survey – analysis of the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS) 2014/2015 data. This is a nationally representative large-scale household survey, in which people aged eight and over from 4,216 households in the UK complete diaries about how they spend their time. Read the blog and detailed report.

Mapping existing family volunteering opportunities – a review of organisational websites, expressions of interest and discussions with organisations.

Organisational case studies – research activities with five volunteer-involving organisations in England – Kids Run Free, Little Village, St John Ambulance, St Mary’s church in Wendover and The Whitworth. Data collected included: interviews with staff/leaders; focus groups and/or interviews with volunteers; family case studies; a review of organisational documents and administrative data; observations of volunteering activities, where possible.

Case studies with families – the 12 case studies with families typically involved a joint interview and mapping activity with as many of the family members as possible followed by a series of one-to-one interviews with individual family members.

This page was last reviewed for accuracy on 01 September 2020