New Volunteer Online Training Package

17th November 2020

Meals on Wheels NSW roll out new online Volunteer eLearning System as they commence welcoming back thousands of Volunteers
 
The COVID-19 Pandemic has seen a rapid increase in demand for Meals on Wheels services across NSW, with more clients than ever before being served each day. Due to the nature of the pandemic, many local Meals on Wheels services were required to adapt and temporarily stand down the vast majority of their Volunteers, who are heavily involved with keeping the organisations wheels in motion, as they fall into the older persons category over 70 years of age, and were required to self-isolate.
 
Meals on Wheels NSW, peak body for Meals on Wheels services in NSW, have now rolled out a new a new eLearning training program for all Volunteers, consisting of 11 modules, to support all Meals on Wheels Volunteers across the State. The training consists of key modules such as Food Safety, COVID19 Training, Emergency Situations, Wellness and Reablement, Home Visits, Health and Safety, Client Confidentiality, At Risk Clients and Home Visit Procedures.
 
The new training system comes at an important time, where many Volunteers are returning to their Volunteering roles, which may now be slightly different to what they were pre-pandemic.
 
Les MacDonald, CEO of Meals on Wheels NSW said “It is a really important time to be delivering fresh training, taking the ‘new world’ we are living in into account. The training package that we have developed is designed to give overarching information to Volunteers, and to be delivered in conjunction with a local induction, as one of the benefits of Meals on Wheels is that each local Meals on Wheels service has its own flavour and way of operating”.
 
“It only takes approximately one hour to undertake the training online and volunteers can do it in the comfort of their home at a time that suits them, minimising the need for group gatherings at Meals on Wheels services” Les MacDonald said.
 
With our Volunteers delivering more than 4.5million meals in NSW each year, on average, Meals on Wheels services transitioned to new processes in order to meet the increase in demand from clients, with less hands on deck to deliver meals and have do a wellness check on each client. These new training modules reiterate important information for Volunteers and are delivered in a user friendly and simple online format.
 
If you would like to arrange an interview, please contact:
Claudia Odello
General Manager, Marketing and Fundraising