Developing the volunteering process at Global Clinic Helsinki

Volunteering is an activity that benefits others and is carried out of free will without a reward or a compensation. Motivation, engagement, retention, and management of volunteers are important aspects of volunteering both for volunteers themselves as well as for their managers. When comparing within the European Union context, volunteering is relatively common in Finland. However, there is very little information on health care professionals volunteering with their professional skill set in Finland. The context of volunteering in this master’s thesis is Global Clinic Helsinki, which offers medical assistance and guidance as well as health care services for people with an irregular immigration status in the capital area of Finland. Health care services at Global Clinic Helsinki are provided by volunteering health care professionals. At the moment, health and social care services for people with irregular immigration status in Finland vary greatly depending on the area they reside in, as some municipalities provide more extensive services than others. This master’s thesis is done for the PapeTe-program - a collaboration between Global Clinic Helsinki and Physicians for Social Responsibility Finland, which aims to promote the health of people with irregular immigration status. For this master’s thesis five volunteers from Global Clinic Helsinki were interviewed about their volunteering experience. The data was collected by individual face-to-face or phone interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed using inductive content analysis. The goal of this master’s thesis was to develop the volunteering process at Global Clinic Helsinki. The aim of this master’s thesis is to provide PapeTe-program a suggestion of actions for them to develop the Global Clinic volunteering process, and to improve their volunteer recruiting, retention, motivation, and coordination. The study questions for this master’s thesis are: 1. How does the PapeTe-program affect the volunteering experience at Global Clinic? 2. Which elements influence the experience of volunteering at Global Clinic? The results of this master’s thesis highlight the importance of the PapeTe-program for the Global Clinic Helsinki volunteers. Both the program as well as the program’s coordinator were seen as having a significant role in making the volunteer work more efficient and easier for volunteers, especially when comparing to the time before the program first started. Fourteen elements that influenced the volunteering experience were identified and they are similar to those in literature. Some of these elements were: motivation, engagement, receiving support, training and orientation, acknowledgments, and aspects of team work. Recommendations for the PapeTe-program and Global Clinic Helsinki are related to the significance of the PapeTe-program as well as in improving engagement and commitment of volunteers. Recommendations were made about developing the Global Clinic website, improving support for volunteers by professional guidance and mentoring, and creating and clarifying guidelines