Volunteers can search the National Volunteering Database (NVD) via vinspired.com, a website managed by v, the youth volunteering charity for 16 to 25s. Increasingly, v-funded organisations are using the NVD to upload their volunteering opportunities to ensure young people can apply to them through vinspired.com.

Julia Collar from vinvolved Hertfordshire, and Heather Allen, Chair of Volunteer Centres Hertfordshire tell us about their experience of working together.

Since coming into post in March 2009, and picking up responsibility for vinvolved Hertforshire, colleagues within the partnership have wanted to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the relationship between us and our local Volunteer Centre. Historically, the partnership has had its moments of difficulty. This is generally due to the tensions from meeting expectations and contracted targets, which have been incredibly aspirational for both partners. The result has been that vinvolved's pursuance of the targets has overridden the partnership - at times leaving the Volunteer Centres feeling understandably sidelined and, indeed, undermined.

All these factors are being addressed collaboratively, centring on our shared value base about providing the best possible service and support for young people to engage in volunteering. We will be working together in the coming months to develop an improved strategic vision for the partnership, which focuses on increased transparency, better communication, and creating more opportunities for joint working.

Things are working best at an operational level: vinvolved staff regularly access the Volunteer Centres to meet with young people, liaise with staff and share information. Some vinvolved staff are based full time in Volunteer Centres and are therefore able to participate in the centres' unique culture and enjoy immediate access to their expertise and resources, especially V-Base.

Some difficulties and confusion have occurred when young volunteers register through the vinspired website as their details are passed to the Volunteer Centres in the first instance and not to the vinvolved Team. Improved communication and recording is helping to overcome this issue and ensure young people's motivation to volunteer does not get lost in administration.

The Volunteer Centres have a high local profile as they have been around for a long time and are very widely recognised for their good work. vinvolved has benefited from operating in association with this reputation, but there is still much to do to together to raise the overall profile of youth volunteering across the county.

Heather Allen, Chair of Volunteer Centres Hertfordshire:

Volunteer Centres in Hertfordshire have always helped large numbers of young people to find appropriate volunteering opportunities. So what v offered was a chance to enhance the volunteering experience for all these young people, through accreditation (if they wanted it), the development of more youth-led initiatives and ongoing support from v teams. Volunteer Centres in Herts greeted the v programme with great enthusiasm.

Previously in Hertfordshire, the work we did with Millennium Volunteers (MV) had mixed results. It worked well where MV staff and Volunteer Centres had adopted a joint approach, utilising strengths drawn from both. This seemed like an ideal model for developing v, and with this in mind, Volunteer Centres partnered with Watford YMCA in its bid for a v contract. The Centres offered:

• A geographical network of nine Volunteering England quality accredited centres with an excellent reputation for joint working
• Expertise in V-Base and valuable data on volunteer involving organisations countywide, which could be shared
• Expertise in the development of good practice in volunteer management
• Established links to local strategic partnerships, businesses, sports networks, regional and national forums and statutory agencies

As with any new project and partnership there were teething problems. Some of these stemmed from national issues, others local. As V-Base was the chosen database for v opportunities, it had been hoped that it would be tweaked to cope with volunteer data for reporting purposes. A 'work around' took some time to devise. do-it applications received by Volunteer Centres had no indication as to whether they came from the vinspired or do-it websites; it would have been useful to know. Initially vinspired.com was populated with opportunities supplied by Volunteer Centres anyway. Targets set by v were high, so the v team concentrated on easy wins rather than individual do-it /vinspired applications. Only four of the six v team members worked from Volunteer Centres.

At the end of year one it will be good to review progress and the Steering Group will be doing this shortly. With a new vinvolved Project Manager in place we are confident that the original remit of providing excellent volunteer experiences for all young people signing up to v will be achieved.