The Social Practices of Food Bank Volunteer Work (original) (raw)
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Ways to care: Forms and possibilities of compassion within UK food banks
The Sociological Review, 2021
Food banks are organisations which occupy an uncomfortable position, being seen both as a manifestation of caring communities as well as an undesirable feature of neoliberal government. By focusing on the encounters between volunteers and food bank users within these organisations, we excavate their caring side to find three forms of compassion: compassion ‘for’, compassion ‘with’ and compassion ‘within’. We show that while compassion ‘for’ can lead to countless selfless acts, it remains embedded within neoliberal discourses. This can serve to reinforce distance and inequalities between giver (volunteer) and receiver (food bank user), creating a chain of indebtedness as compassion becomes part of a transactional exchange offered to those seen as worthy. Compassion ‘with’ others focuses on the person rather than the problem of food poverty and manifests itself in expressions of connection and responsibility which can, however, become possessive at times. Compassion ‘within’ is a form...
Feeding the debate: a local food bank explains itself
Voluntary Sector Review, 2015
The increasing prevalence of food banks in the United Kingdom has attracted considerable public debate. This article brings the authors’ experiences and observations from their involvement in one inner-city food bank into dialogue with both policy issues and the Christian theology that motivates many food bank volunteers. It argues for an attentiveness to what food banks say to society as well as what they do, and highlights their potential as spaces of encounter and mutuality.
Emergency Use Only: Understanding and reducing the use of food banks in the UK
2014
The use of emergency food aid in the UK, particularly in the form of food banks, has dramatically increased over the last decade. Research was jointly conducted by Oxfam, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), the Church of England and The Trussell Trust to examine why people are turning to food banks, how food bank use fits with their wider coping strategies, and what might be done to reduce the need that leads to food bank use. Interviews with clients at seven food banks across the UK revealed that the acute crisis that leads people to turn to food banks is often set against a background of complex, difficult lives. Experiences included ill health, bereavement, relationship breakdown, heavy caring responsibilities or job loss, as well as constantly low income. The report shows that action is needed to ensure that the safety net provided by the social security system is vital. It can help prevent life shocks becoming crises, and offer vital protection for vulnerable people. This report...
Sheffield Hallam University, Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, 2021
Small and local charities-those with an income under £1 million-were at the heart of the community response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. They demonstrated tremendous energy, flexibility and professionalism to understand the implications of the crisis and continuously adapt their provision in response to the everchanging needs and circumstances of their local communities. During the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic smaller charities worked flexibly to respond quickly to the implications of the crisis. In essence, they 'showed up' and then 'stuck around', using their position of trust within communities experiencing complex social issues to support people when they were needed most. This is in contrast to parts of the public sector, who were slower to react, and to informal support and mutual aid, which has dissipated over time. The service offer of smaller charities was concentrated on addressing four main areas of need-access to food, isolation and loneliness, information and mental health/ wellbeing-and was tailored to different groups experiencing complex social issues. They found multiple ways to maintain human contact by checking up on people, keeping in touch with them and connecting them to one another wherever possible. Who smaller charities worked with was particularly distinctive, as they acted as a channel of support for groups and communities where having a relationship of trust was especially critical and whose needs tended to be less well served by mainstream provision even though they were more likely to be adversely affected by impacts of COVID-19, such as ethnicity, poverty and pre-existing health inequalities. quickly & they worked flexibly showed up small charities stuck around &
“Bringing heaven down to earth”: the purpose and place of religion in UK food aid
Social Enterprise Journal, 2017
Purpose This paper uses data from a city with a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population to better understand faith-based food aid. The paper aims to understand what constitutes faith-based responses to food insecurity, compare the prevalence and nature of faith-based food aid across different religions and explore how community food aid meets the needs of a multi-ethnic, multi-faith population. Design/methodology/approach The study involved two phases of primary research. In Phase 1, desk-based research and dialogue with stakeholders in local food security programmes were used to identify faith-based responses to food insecurity. Phase 2 consisted of 18 semi-structured interviews involving faith-based and secular charitable food aid organizations. Findings The paper illustrates the internal heterogeneity of faith-based food aid. Faith-based food aid is highly prevalent and the vast majority is Christian. Doctrine is a key motivation among Christian organizations for their provision of ...
Keeping the Faith 2.0 Embedding a new normal for partnership working in post-pandemic Britain
2022
This report reflects the views and experiences of senior representatives and practitioners of both local authorities and faith groups across England, expressed in 35 in-depth interviews. It is a follow up report to the original Keeping the Faith report, published in November 2020 and covers the 12 months of experience of working in partnership to tackle COVID-19 since the time of that publication. The key theme emerging from the research is that we are now entering a more reflexive stage of the pandemic as we move from ‘rescue and emergency’ mode to ‘building back better’. In other words, addressing the longer-term implications of partnership working if the ‘new normal’ - identified in the original report as being the useful learning and practices developed in the ‘eye of the storm’ of the first lockdown - is to be preserved and built upon. These longer-term implications are expressed in areas of policy and technical change, many of which are highlighted in the appendix to this report and include those associated with the ‘hotspots’ of policy partnership that have emerged in this second phase of the pandemic. As well as the ongoing need for emergency food relief and food distribution, faith groups and local authorities have also found themselves collaborating closely in areas of mental health, public health, domestic violence, the care and integration of refugees and migrants, mentoring highly vulnerable families and individuals, being the conduits for other clinical and public health interventions in their recovery, as well as providing emergency childcare services via fostering and adoption services. The growing use of worship and other faith-based centres in the delivery of statutory mental health and public health is likely to be a permanent feature of health and social care provision going forward. However, the bulk of the content of this report is concerned with highlighting the importance of values as the basis for more effective and sustainable partnership and policy development. The key message around the capability of faith/secular partnerships to build back better is that ‘shared values’ are much more likely to lead to ‘shared outcomes’. Shared values identified as being held in common across both local authorities and faith groups include: compassion, social justice (including an end to discrimination and poverty), friendship, an ethos of service, kindness, empathy, and hope. The final section of the report goes on to identify the implications of deploying these shared values as the basis for ongoing partnerships committed to building back better. These include changing mindsets and cultures, as well as beginning with the more democratic and inclusive principles and techniques associated with co-creation, rather than simple co-production. A series of eight policy areas for developing toolkits and co-created training opportunities, building on the insights of this project’s data, that both local authorities and faith groups can devise and deliver, are proposed.
More Than a ‘Little Act of Kindness’? Towards a Typology of Volunteering as Unpaid Work
Sociology, 2017
Definitions of volunteering are widespread and complex, yet relatively little attention is given to volunteering as unpaid work, even though it intersects with the worlds of paid employment and the domestic sphere, cutting across individual/collective and public/private spaces. This article advances a typology of volunteering work (altruistic, instrumental, militant and forced volunteering/‘voluntolding’) that illuminates the complexity and dynamism of volunteering. Using qualitative data from a study of 30 volunteers to explore practices of volunteering as they unfold in daily life, the typology provides much-needed conceptual building blocks for a theory of ‘volunteering as unpaid work’. This perspective helps transcend the binaries prevalent in the sociology of work and provides a lens to rethink what counts as work in contemporary society. It also invites further research about the effects of ‘voluntolding’ on individuals and society, and on the complex relationship between volu...
British Journal of Guidance & Counselling , 2018
Telephone helplines offer a valued service for those in distress. However, little research has explored the experience of helpline volunteers. Through semi-structured interviews, we explore the volunteering experiences of nine long-term UK Samaritan volunteers. Interviews were analysed using Interpretive Interactionism. The analysis highlighted that volunteering impacted participants' experience of their sense of self. The decision to volunteer was framed as part of a search for personal meaning, tied to experiences of loss and reparation. Participants reflected positively on their volunteer identity, but highlighted tensions between a sense of vocation and the experience of care burden. The Samaritan Community also offered a sense of belonging and social support. They experienced involvement as personally meaningful, enabling the construction of a positive self-identity.
The role of grassroots food banks in building political solidarity with vulnerable people
European Societies, 2018
In the context of economic crisis and welfare retrenchment in Spain, food banks have been an emergency solution for those at risk of social exclusion. Food banks have been criticised for playing a significant role in perpetuating dependency and, therefore, exacerbating inequality between those who donate and receive help. However, in Madrid, in the years after the 15M movement grassroots food banks initiatives resignified an old mode of assistance by creating solidarity forms. In this paper, we analyse these grassroots food banks with a particular emphasis on the case of Tetuán. We show how political and interpersonal solidarity is built among grassroots foodbanks' members. We argue that these banks' political motto leads to inter-recognition among their participants. Furthermore, through a sharedand permanently reinforceddiscourse, food recipients identify the root causes of their excruciating living conditions. Thus, a 'we-ness' (defined here as a sense of cohesion and fellowship) is created, which challenges the inequality and stigma reinforced by traditional, and charitable, forms of assistance. In sum, grassroots food banks promote social inclusion as they not only provide aid, but also endorse new venues for solidarity building that challenges the hierarchical relationships, ingrained in traditional forms of charity giving, typical of formal food banks.