Volunteering In Sport, Health & Nutrition - SHN5152

Volunteering In Sport, Health And Nutrition - SHN5152 Assignment Sample

Introduction

• Volunteering in sports health and nutrition is another important intervention that significantly boosts the quality of humans and groups.
• As one of the foundational assets of public health and community welfare, volunteering in these fields not only offers tangible services but also shapes a healthy and supportive lifestyle.
• Different volunteers spend time encouraging others to engage in physical activities while enhancing their nutritional literacy and engagement and they produce a positive social impact on different groups of the population.

This presentation will seek to discuss some of the various roles that volunteers play in these fields and look at how their action contributes towards the achievement of more health consciousness, and social and community cohesion. However, in this paper, we will expand on the taxonomy of volunteer roles in sports, health and nutrition and also highlight the gains that they make from such roles.

Volunteering in Sport

• Volunteering in the sports domain is a vital facilitator and contributor towards the participation in sporting events among groups of individuals and supporting athletes of all abilities to achieve their potential.
• Volunteers play various roles, ranging from making sure sports programs is effectively done, particularly at the grassroots level and those organizations that largely benefit from volunteers (Nagel et al., 2019).
• Coaches are people who oversee the athletes, and they are volunteers, who are mandated with ensuring that they groom the athletes.

They could interact with children during community sports activities, help within schools, or be involved with local youth amateur clubs. They may also develop fitness programs or help in the fine-tuning of specific sports fundamentals that play a part in the development of athletes.

• Organizing of sports events sometimes involves public participation through the figure of volunteers (Okada et al., 2021).
• Some of those responsibilities include the control of functional activities that include registration, safety issues, and the overall running of the event.
• They aid in directing the organizers behind the scenes, including managing crowds and answering questions from participants.

Volunteers in supporting capacities include aiding as mentors, coaches, trainers, and medical attendants, responsible for equipment, catering services or secretarial work. This has helped these volunteers to support the sustenance of the normal activities of the sporting associations/teams and activities.

• Volunteers develop many yields which include leadership skills, communication skills and teamwork (Dempsey-Brench and Shantz, 2021).
• These skills are not only pertinent to sports activities, but these can be exported to professional situations thus making volunteerism a good learning experience.
• One of the biggest rewards that many volunteers end up earning is the satisfaction of seeing individuals progress to the status that they want to achieve, especially athletes.

Volunteering in sports is a way of coming face to face with some professionals in the sporting field to build relationships. A point worthy to note is the fact that the majority of the volunteers promote the career ladder to become coaching, event management or sports administrators, as this frequent experience offers an entry point for careers in these disciplines. Sports volunteering plays an even huge role in enhancing the quality of society because it promotes physical activities. Volunteers enable more kids and adults to get a chance to attend sports activities hence reducing incidences of diseases including obesity and heart conditions. In addition, volunteers give a hand to building a positive sports culture that transforms communities by factors like teamwork, discipline and respect.

Volunteering in Health

• Volunteering in health helps the systems and is vital in impacting the health of those receiving the services (Panday, Teijlingen and Barnes, 2024).
• The volunteers’ tasks are also comprehensive cutting across charity work in hospitals, clinics, and community-based projects.
• Their work helps healthcare professionals and directly comforts patients, especially in shortage or during health emergencies.

Others participate in the creation of awareness on a special health concern whether it is mental health, chronic diseases or lifestyle changes. They help in conducting health awareness programs, preparing and disseminating health literature and helping public health campaigns. These volunteers assist in implementing the information between the health facilities on the one hand and the general populace on the other concerning major health events. Volunteers perform multiple tasks in healthcare facilities; they offer assistance to the patients most of the time individuals with long-term diseases, disabilities, elderly. They assist the patients in the performance of daily tasks, give them company and keep them cheerful during treatments or admissions. There are strictly many cases where volunteers tend to provide friendship to patients as these individuals might feel lonely, thus improving the general outcome.

• In emergency cases like pandemics, and calamities, volunteers can be of great help to the community in terms of immediate response (Pickell, Gu and Williams, 2020).
• They can help in creating mobile hospitals, medicines or provisions, and help health care personnel handle a large amount of patients.
• The roles they play are usually very important especially where health care facilities are stretched.

Volunteering in health can be very advantageous to volunteers, organizations, and the healthcare system as a whole while improving personal and professional practice. Volunteers also acquire several skills during their work in healthcare such as basic life support, handling patients, managing emergencies and communication skills. These skills can be applied to other fields, giving volunteers the added experience they need to advance their careers in the field of healthcare or any other humane service-oriented business. The knowledge itself of the fact that volunteers are out there working hard to provide some form of assistance to those in need during such times is fulfilling many volunteers. Patient support, health promotion, or some disaster mitigation and relief can be uplifting, by reciting volunteers' positive sentiments of accomplishment.

Volunteering in Nutrition

• Nutrition volunteerism is crucial in encouraging the improvement of individuals’ quality diet and fighting diseases that are associated with poor dieting habits in societies (Latif et al., 2020).
• Nutrition volunteers are involved in spreading awareness of proper diet and healthy eating plans, giving nutritional counsel and working with projects that seek to enhance the availability of healthy food.
• The work they do is particularly crucial in contexts in which malnutrition and food insecurity are especially rife, as they serve to translate information into action.

Nutrition volunteers commonly participate in numerous activities which raise awareness, encourage the adoption of healthy lifestyles, and refer and assist individuals who require help with their diets.

• Concerned communities and individuals are sometimes assisted by volunteers in understanding the benefits of eating balanced meals and taking proper nutrition and how certain foods affect our health (Soldavini et al., 2021).
• They can be employed in schools, community centres or local clinics to facilitate and conduct workshops, distribute informative materials and individual counselling.
• In these ways, they support people to comprehend the nutritional benefits of foods and thus improve their well-being in the future.

Most volunteers in the service delivery of nutrition support food banks, community kitchens or food distribution agencies. These efforts target offering lacking and excellent food to households and individuals suffering from shortages in the USA. Some of the roles and responsibilities of volunteers include fundraising force, packing and serving food and making sure the recipients get healthy foods. They also may help in preparing the meal menus for clients with special diet concerns like the elderly or for clients with certain medical conditions.

• Some of the volunteers help in counselling the patients or members of the community on nutrition if they have some training in this field (Vaiciurgis et al., 2024).
• They include delivering advice on weight loss, their implementation to various chronic diseases such as diabetes and how to change the diet for the healthier one.
• Paraprofessionals might assist dietitians or members of the public health workforce to meet the dietary needs and health requirements of those who require their services.

Working with the volunteers increases their experience of how to apply the knowledge of nutrition in practice. This is rather important for those who want to build their careers in nutrition, dietetics, or public health. They can also educationally gain knowledge about food insecurity, food choices within culturally diverse societies and even understanding and designing community outreach health programmes. Assisting people make necessary lifestyle changes for the benefit of their health is very rewarding. Participants feel rewarded by the feedback they receive from the recipients of their service delivery; knowing that the various people especially those who cannot easily access this type of information and the right foods.

Challenges Faced by Volunteers

• Despite the highly rewarding experience one can gain from volunteering in sport, health, and nutrition volunteering is associated with several forms of challenges that demote the ability of the volunteer to make a positive change.
• These concerns run the gamut from inadequate funding to volunteers’ fatigue issues, and each needs to be addressed to guarantee that volunteers are suitably cared for and able to perform their duties (Vaiciurgis et al., 2024).
• One of the many problems that the volunteers encounter is that they operate under tight funded budgets.

Volunteering programs most of the time in organizations which lack adequate funding or those situated in rural areas are highly challenged in providing the right materials, equipment or even facilities. For instance, sports may not have harnesses for training or events, and hand health and nutrition may not have sufficient information, educational, and nutritional products for the targeted communities. The inadequacy of such a resource can greatly prevent volunteer work from achieving much and might also demoralise the volunteers.

• Volunteerism is not without its challenges; one of the major challenges is burnout among the volunteers (Morse et al., 2020).
• Volunteers themselves are to have other commitments; this may be work, school, or even children.
• This situation causes tension, stress or what might be termed as degradation through peer pressure through volunteering health and nutritional services.

Volunteers get easily bored or even get frustrated when they are not valued in the services that they provide and this leads to their secession from the volunteer's work. This is especially the cases where the staff is constantly under pressure, for instance in the health crisis response efforts, the workload is overwhelming.

Recommendations for Improving Volunteer Participation

• The presence and accessibility of training and volunteering support should be considered a priority in organizations (Daddoust et al., 2021).
• With the delivery of the necessary training for the volunteers who are willing to help the community, the latter will be trained to ensure they cope with the assigned tasks efficiently and confidently.
• These are essential subjects touching on practical skills, organizational expectations, laws and regulations, professional ethical issues and special circumstances in the volunteer's areas of deployment.

The last recommendation is that the authorities should provide prizes and bonuses for volunteers and make the work of volunteers known to the public. Because volunteers are unpaid positions it is paramount to have motivating factors besides money this includes; certificates, letters of recommendation and public appreciation.

For assistance and support on volunteer management and sourcing for more funds, NGO or voluntarism cooperation with companies or local government as well as a partnership with big organizations is appropriate. This will make it possible for organizations to prevent problems like shortcoming in resources, which hinders volunteering efforts. Through cooperation, volunteers will need to be endowed with equipment or training aids or even transport or refund for expenses.

Conclusion

• Therefore, volunteering in sports, health, and nutrition contributes significantly to the well-being and development of society.
• This paper considers barriers including inadequate resources, volunteer fatigue and lack of capacity for skill development as ways through which organisations can improve on volunteers’ experiences and volunteer recruitment.
• Volunteer appreciation or reward plays a vital role in assuming commitment from volunteers so that they can keep on delivering their service in society positively.

To encourage volunteers who may not be able to commit a considerable amount of their time, there should be regular voluntary hours, online volunteering or volunteering project part-time or short-term volunteering.

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References

• Daddoust, L., Asgary, A., McBey, K.J., Elliott, S. and Normand, A. (2021). Spontaneous volunteer coordination during disasters and emergencies: Opportunities, challenges, and risks. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, [online] 65(4), p.102546. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102546.
• Dempsey-Brench, K. and Shantz, A. (2021). Skills-based volunteering: A systematic literature review of the intersection of skills and employee volunteering. Human Resource Management Review, [online] 32(4), p.100874. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2021.100874.
• Latif, J., Dabbous, M., Weekes, C.E. and Baldwin, C. (2020). The Effectiveness of Trained Volunteer Delivered Interventions in Adults at Risk of malnutrition: a Systematic Review and meta-analysis. Clinical Nutrition, 40(3). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2020.06.008.
• Morse, J.L., Dik, B.J., Shimizu, A.B. and Reed, K.A. (2020). Volunteerism and Burnout: Does Satisfaction of Motives for Volunteering Protect Against Symptoms? VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 5(4). doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00257-y.
• Nagel, S., Seippel, Ø., Breuer, C., Feiler, S., Elmose-Østerlund, K., Llopis-Goig, R., Nichols, G., Perényi, S., Piątkowska, M. and Scheerder, J. (2019). Volunteer satisfaction in sports clubs: A multilevel analysis in 10 European countries. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(8), pp.1074–1093. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690219880419.
• Okada, A., Ishida, Y., Yamauchi, N., Grönlund, H., Zhang, C. and Krasnopolskaya, I. (2021). Episodic Volunteering in Sport Events: A Seven-Country Analysis. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 5(4). doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00428-5.
• Panday, S., Teijlingen, E. van and Barnes, A. (2024). Exploring the motivations of female community health volunteers in primary healthcare provision in rural Nepal: A qualitative study. PLOS Global Public Health, 4(8), p.e0003428. doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003428.
• Pickell, Z., Gu, K. and Williams, A.M. (2020). Virtual volunteers: the importance of restructuring medical volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical Humanities, 5(4), p.medhum-2020-011956. doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2020-011956.
• Soldavini, J., Taillie, L.S., Lytle, L.A., Berner, M., Ward, D.S. and Ammerman, A. (2021). College student motivations for and perceived impacts of volunteering with a nutrition and cooking education program for children. Journal of Community Psychology, 5(4). doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22757.
• Vaiciurgis, V.T., Clancy, A.K., Charlton, K.E., Stefoska‐Needham, A. and Beck, E.J. (2024). Supporting the nutrition‐related health and well‐being of people experiencing socio‐economic disadvantage: Findings from a national survey. Journal of human nutrition and dietetics, 5(4). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jhn.13340.