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France

2. Voluntary Activities

2.6 Quality assurance

Last update: 28 November 2023

Bénévolat

In the case of bénévolat, there is no "quality assurance system" to assess a mission’s success. However, some organisations have developed their own bénévolat charter, which every member must commit to. The Petits Frères des Pauvres organisation, which combats poverty providing social support to people in precarious situations, has defined a "voluntary pact" whereby it sets the rules bénévoles must follow to "implement the support relationship" specific to their mission. Among other things, bénévoles agree to "comply with the charter, participate in the life of the organisation and uphold freely agreed commitments, work as a team, agree to train to better fulfil the responsibilities entrusted to them, and carefully observe the rules of confidentiality", while the organisation undertakes to "recruit and guide bénévoles according to their desires and skills, define roles and coordinate actions." Non-profit organisations have the freedom to set up quality assurance systems, but this is not mandatory.

 

Civic Service

 

The situation is different for voluntary work and more specifically for Civic Service, which has a system for monitoring and evaluating missions (particularly qualitative) that takes place during the young person's commitment and also at the end of the Civic Service.

The Civic Service Agency monitors and controls the smooth running of the missions. This involves checking

- the compliance of the implementation of Civic Service with the texts in force (National Service Code, law of 10 March 2010);

- compliance with the obligations presented to the organisations that have received approval;

- the absence of discrepancies between the actions carried out and the content of the approval;

- the quality of the programme from the volunteers' point of view;

 

In qualitative terms, the aim is to assess

- the interest and usefulness of the mission in which the young people are involved, in particular the impact on their life project or even their social and professional integration

- the interest for the organisations that host the volunteers and thus benefit from the reinforcement of their missions and activities of general interest

- the interest of French society as a whole, which ultimately benefits from these missions of general interest.

Quality assessment of the mission

During the mission, the young people involved are accompanied by a tutor, the only person named in the Civic Service contract. The tutor must accompany the young person and facilitate his/her integration into the host organisation.  The presence of a tutor constitutes a form of internal control, insofar as he or she must ensure that the young person is properly integrated into the organisation and accompany him or her on the assignment.

In addition, organisations approved for the Civic Service commitment must report on their Civic Service activities for each year that has passed, in accordance with instruction No. ASC/Pôle CAT/2021/03 of 23 July 2021 relating to the implementation of control within the framework of the Civic Service provisions. This report submitted to the Civic Service Agency and to the regional academic delegations for youth, commitment and sport (for organisations carrying out an activity at regional or departmental level) must describe the missions, their development and the conditions under which they are carried out. This report on activities must also enable organisations approved under the Civic Service scheme to indicate and identify any difficulties encountered, "to report on the lessons they have learned from the programme and, where appropriate, to make proposals".

The quality of the assignment is also assessed by sending a satisfaction questionnaire to all volunteers at the end of their assignment (by post or e-mail). This questionnaire, which is distributed by the Civic Service Agency, is used to assess the overall level of satisfaction of volunteers with the performance of their mission and to improve the Civic Service mission guidelines.

In addition to this survey, the Civic Service Agency regularly conducts satisfaction surveys, particularly among former volunteers, in order to measure the impact of Civic Service on these young people in terms of professional integration, well-being and participation in community life.