by Catherine Hine, CEO
A former colleague of mine used to reliably pipe up in meetings, ‘voluntary is not amateur!’ This week -and every day- at The Breastfeeding Network (UK), I am really reminded of this!
True to form, I am going to start by waxing empirical about the striking number of volunteer hours donated last year. This is important. 46,231 hours is materially significant additional capacity. And this capacity matters more than ever in light of yesterday’s confirmation that 72% women and families continue to stop breastfeeding before they want to. In fact, skilled volunteer infant feeding capacity donated via BfN alone, has grown by almost a third since the Infant Feeding Survey took place.
Putting aside the irrational undervaluing of skills so critical to functioning societies and economies, if every volunteer was paid the Real Living Wage for their contribution, this BfN volunteer contribution represents an additional £699,013 to skilled infant feeding support.
Stop and consider this for a moment. BfN targets services and training (both, consistently free-of-charge to parents), in areas of high deprivation and under-served communities. This means many volunteers commit to achieve the high bar set by our accredited training and contribute time to skilled volunteering, whilst caring for families and according to Women’s Budget Group, being most exposed to in-and out of work poverty themselves.
Volunteers’ Week is a good moment to remind ourselves that not everything that counts can -easily- be counted or turned into pithy soundbites.
Apart from the demanding commitment to ongoing training, supervision, improvement that BfN requires to sustain trusted services, each hour represents transformational conversations at some of the toughest points in parenthood. Honestly, how many parents experience infant feeding as ‘just what they told me at school’? (Assuming it got a mention at all!)
In these hours, successive evaluations demonstrate families experiencing skilled information and support that leaves them feeling confident, informed and able to move forward in their chosen infant feeding journeys. No lengthy wait times, no exhausting re-explaining, no feeling rushed out of the door, no promotion of expensive and unnecessary products promising the moon for baby… practical, down-to-earth, skilled support, humble on its limitations and respecting what that specific parent wants and needs.
This is what I celebrate this Volunteers’ Week… together with the reality that at BfN, I am personally blessed with no less professionalism and skill on our Board, the volunteers who lead everything we do as a charity.
I hope that BfN volunteers reading this message understand just how much your work is valued, reading this. To be sure, I say again, THANK YOU!