Quality Assurance

There are no official mechanisms for monitoring and quality assurance of youth volunteering in Slovakia. Youth policy, including youth volunteering, is being assessed occasionally through the assessment of Youth Strategy (2010, 2014, 2021), but regular monitoring and quality assurance do not exist.

Minimum obligations of organisations, when sending and receiving volunteers have been defined by the legislation within the Act on Volunteering and the Act on Support of Youth Work. No public institution monitors whether and to what extent these obligations have been respected by organisations working with volunteers.

Thanks to the financial support provided by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, the Quality standards for the management of volunteers were created in 2014 by the Volunteering Centre in Banská Bystrica (NGO) in cooperation with the Platform of Volunteer Centres and Organisations (NGO). General standards have been defined relevant to work with any target groups, including young people. These standards were implemented in 120 (at 4.10.2021) organisations within a project of the Platform of Volunteering Centres and Organisations financed by the aforesaid ministry. The standards have been aimed at the following areas of work with volunteers:

• Coordination of volunteers;
• Legal and ethical framework;
• Financial and material resources for volunteering;
• Team integration;
• Duties and profiles of volunteers;
• Recruitment and selection of volunteers;
• Training of volunteers;
• Communication with volunteers and their support;
• Appreciation and recognition of volunteers;
• Evidence, documentation and evaluation of a voluntary programme.

The procedures for external assessment of these standards have also been defined. But the implementation of standards has not been included in any legislation, it is rather a matter of individual organisations – their aspiration to acquire quality label and thus communicate their quality work with volunteers to the donors and general public.

Specific standards for the field of youth volunteering have been included in the process of accreditation for sending and hosting volunteers in the framework of the European Solidarity Corps.  These standards are valid for all countries, and their assessment is guaranteed by the National Agency of the EU Erasmus+ Programme for the field of Youth and Sport established in Slovakia in the National Institute for Education and Sport.