Recruitment drive announced after acute loss of adult volunteers and members during lockdowns
The Scouts lost 15,000 adult volunteers over the last year. Photograph: Scouts/PA
The Scouts lost 15,000 adult volunteers over the last year. Photograph: Scouts/PA
Thu 27 May 2021 01.00 EDT
The Scouts movement lost more volunteers and youth members in the last year than at any time since the outbreak of the second world war, as Covid lockdowns ended weekly meetings and forced helpers to step back.
Active membership slumped by a quarter over the past year, with 117,000 fewer beavers, cubs, scouts and explorers taking part. One in 10 of its adult volunteers, many of whom were key workers, have also slipped away, with the ranks of its volunteers reducing from 156,000 to 141,000 in the last year. Many adults who lost jobs or had to change jobs during the pandemic were no longer able to help.
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The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Volunteering
A program in Connecticut offers psychotherapy in exchange for voluntary service in the community. But the act of volunteering itself can have mental health benefits of its own.
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Empowerment, agency, and control. Impact, self-esteem, and social connections. A sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of contributing and with all that, a feeling of reward.
All are elements in the psychological impact of volunteering.
And all are critical pieces of Volunteers in Psychotherapy, a West Hartford, Connecticut, program that offers pure talk-therapy sessions in exchange for voluntary service in the community. The longstanding, forward-pushing nonprofit was designed as a corrective to the usual medicalized approach to mental healthcare, which too often strips the autonomy of patients and too often prioritizes pharmaceuticals over in-depth therapy. Many people can’t afford mental healthcare out of pocket; when it is covered by