Our volunteers are at the heart of our work here at the HRA.
We want to support all of the Research Ethics Committee members, Confidentiality Advice Group members and Public Involvement Network volunteers who work with us. We want your experience of volunteering to be a positive and rewarding one.
Natasha Dunkley, Head of the HRA Confidentiality Advice ServiceValuing our Volunteers at the HRA
As Head of the Confidentiality Advisory Service, I’m proud to be part of our Valuing our Volunteers project, which is looking at how we can better support our volunteers. As part of this important piece of work, we are conducting our first volunteer survey, to understand your experience of working with the HRA.
Diversity is an important aspect of this, which is why the survey asks you to provide some personal information about yourself. We want to make sure that everyone who works for or volunteers with the HRA is treated fairly. We also want to be an inclusive organisation which reflects the diversity of the population that we support. We think that some demographic aspects of our volunteers, such as ethnicity and age, aren’t always representative, but as we don’t routinely collect this information, we can’t be sure.
Why is sharing this information important?
As Head of the Confidentiality Advice Service, I obviously have a very keen interest in confidentiality. When I’ve been asked to complete surveys in the past which ask me to reveal personal information, I have often chosen the ‘do not wish to say’ box as I’ve thought, why do people need to know, it’s not important!
Here though, the demographic data we ask for gives us an insight into whether we are being inclusive as an organisation. It will help shape our programme of recruitment for members to allow us to identify groups that may be under-represented, and understand how we can better represent and understand the experience of those with protected characteristics - like the people who take part in the research which our committees review. We know that we cannot begin this work until we have a clear baseline of where we’re starting from.
This information will also help us to understand if our volunteer members always feel welcome and comfortable being themselves when working with the HRA.
I want to reassure you that the information we receive back from the survey company is strictly anonymous, and not linked to individuals, we’ll use the data you share to build a picture of our volunteer base as a whole, not of individual committees. We’ll also keep you fully informed as our Valuing our Volunteers work progresses.
Please do complete the survey.