JS Festival in Tochigi 1st National Elderly Welfare Facility Conference

Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers in Australian Aged Care

The 1st National Elderly Welfare Facility Conference and Research Meeting, held in Tochigi Prefecture, gathered practitioners, administrators, academics, and suppliers from across Japan's eldercare sector. Over several days, attendees moved through research presentations, hands-on workshops, networking breaks, guided study tours, and a sizeable exhibition featuring products tailored to aged care. The event, often shortened to JS Festival, drew participants from Hokkaido to Kyushu.

Among the sessions on the programme, one stood out for its practical focus. The volunteer recruitment strategies session asked a deceptively simple question: how does an aged care facility reliably attract and keep the volunteers it depends on for non-clinical support? Speakers drew on facility case studies, university partnerships, and municipal volunteer bureaus to outline pipelines that go beyond casual word of mouth.

For Australian readers, the parallels are easy to draw even though the systems differ. Both countries share an ageing demographic profile, a strong tradition of community volunteering, and policy environments where unpaid contributors carry a significant share of social care. Translating the Tochigi discussions requires a careful read of Australian legislation, funding models, and the way local communities organise themselves around older people.

The session's findings, read alongside the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and the rollout of the new Aged Care Act, point to a set of practical adjustments any Australian facility can begin making without waiting for top-down reform.

Why volunteers matter more than ever

Australian facilities have long relied on volunteers to fill gaps paid staff cannot easily cover: companionship visits, support for activities programmes, mealtime assistance, and help with outings and cultural events. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety made clear that loneliness and inactivity are persistent quality concerns, and volunteers are often the people who address them directly. In rural New South Wales, a single volunteer driver can be the difference between an outing to town and a week without leaving the facility.

With the Commonwealth Home Support Programme and Home Care Packages underwriting much of the community-based response, and residential care operating under tight per-bed funding, paid hours are not always available for the relational work residents value. Volunteers step into that space, which is why recruitment deserves the same structured attention as clinical workforce planning.

Reading the local volunteer landscape

Australia has one of the highest volunteer rates in the OECD, with millions of people donating time each year through organisations such as Volunteering Australia and state peaks like The Centre for Volunteering in Sydney. The supply is strong in places like Melbourne's inner suburbs or Brisbane's western corridors; the bottleneck is matching people to roles that suit their availability and interests.

Older volunteers form a growing share of this pool, with retirees in suburbs from Perth to Hobart looking for meaningful weekly commitments. Cultural diversity adds another layer, particularly in cities such as Melbourne and Sydney where large communities of older Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, and Greek Australians are often eager to support facilities that welcome their language and traditions. Mapping these community assets is a precondition for any recruitment effort that hopes to last longer than a single open day.

Designing roles that fit local life

In Tochigi, presenters stressed that recruitment fails when role descriptions are vague. Australian facilities can apply the same lesson by writing role briefs that specify time commitment, skills required, and tangible outcome for residents. Hostels in Adelaide, dementia units in Newcastle, and community programmes in Hobart each need descriptions that reflect their local reality.

It also helps to break larger roles into smaller, project-based commitments. Many Australians prefer episodic volunteering, perhaps a six-week block during school terms, a seasonal fundraising effort, or a one-off garden tidy-up day. Building a menu of options, from regular weekly visits to short-term projects, widens the pool significantly and respects the reality that retirees, parents, and shift workers rarely share the same calendar.

Role templates worth adapting

Building partnerships that feed the pipeline

The Tochigi speakers repeatedly returned to partnerships with universities, technical colleges, and local councils. In Australia, the equivalent network includes TAFE campuses, schools running community service components of the HSC, and universities in every capital city that ask nursing, social work, and allied health students to complete placements. Formalising those pathways turns ad-hoc enquiries into a predictable stream of recruits.

Local councils are particularly underused. Many maintain volunteer resource centres, and organisations such as the Country Women's Association, Rotary clubs, and Probus groups across regional Queensland and Western Australia are actively looking for causes to support. Reaching out with a clear proposal, ideally through the facility's community engagement lead, opens doors no advertising budget can buy. Facilities wanting a structured starting point can ask the JS Festival organisers for materials used in Tochigi.

Recognition, retention, and the long view

Recruitment is only the front end of a longer story. Retention depends on volunteers feeling that their time matters, that staff respect their contribution, and that the facility will protect them if something goes wrong. The Tochigi session highlighted simple practices: named badges, an annual thank-you event, free meals on shift, and genuine inclusion in team meetings rather than token acknowledgement.

Australian workplaces increasingly understand that volunteers need the same safeguarding standards as paid employees, particularly under the Aged Care Quality Standards and state-level working with vulnerable people checks. Facilities that handle police checks, induction, and insurance transparently find that volunteers stay longer and refer friends.

Measuring what matters

Numbers help, but only if they speak to the volunteer experience and resident wellbeing. Facilities in Australia often track hours contributed and roles filled, which is useful for reporting and funding conversations, yet the Tochigi presenters pushed for softer measures: regular pulse surveys, exit interviews with departing volunteers, and resident feedback on the difference a particular volunteer made.

Indicators worth tracking

Combining these indicators gives a fuller picture than any single metric and supports honest conversations about what is working. Facilities may also explore the conference's guide on facility pet retention for a useful parallel on how small environmental changes shape workforce stability.

Adapting the model to each community

The Tochigi session closed by reminding participants that no single recruitment model travels intact. A coastal facility in Wollongong with strong surf clubs and a nearby university will draw on different networks than an inland hostel serving a small agricultural town. The skill lies in reading the local map: which community groups are active, which faith communities gather nearby, which schools run service programmes, and which local employers might offer paid volunteer leave.

Facilities that revisit their recruitment plan every twelve months, ideally with input from current volunteers, tend to keep their rosters healthy even as conditions shift. The work is unglamorous, and it rarely makes headlines, but it is the kind of steady, deliberate effort that keeps an aged care community feeling alive and connected.