How To Document Community Service Hours For Court

Communication for those assigning or supervising court-ordered community service

The page you are reading now is a resources is for judges, probation officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other criminal justice practitioners that are involved in assigning and supervising court-ordered customs service. Just programs that are expected to host these "volunteers" may too find it helpful.

Under 18 U.s.C. � 3563(b)(12), courts in the United states may provide that the defendant �work in customs service as directed past the court.�

Mandatory customs service or a "Court Referral Program" is an alternating sentencing choice for Superior, Municipal, Traffic and Juvenile Courts in the USA. Community service is considered restitution by an offender through helping his or her community, through a volunteering (unpaid work) experience with a nonprofit, government plan and, sometimes, a religious organisation. The service means deportment, activity, date -- doing something that needs to be done and that helps a community or a cause.

According to Probation and Pretrial Services - Supervision, a section on a web site maintained by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on behalf of the Federal Judiciary, the benefits of this kind of customs service are supposed to be that it

Requires people on supervision to give something back to society.

Gives them an opportunity to get work feel, job skills, and references.

Gives the community complimentary labor and provides services that otherwise might not be available due to lack of funding

We'll affect that idea of "free labor" (which it's not) later on this folio.

The aforementioned U.s.a. federal web site likewise has a section chosen Affiliate three: Community Service (Probation and Supervised Release Conditions) that says:

Customs service is a versatile status that can serve multiple purposes. It can, for example, serve as the publicly discernible penalty in probation cases or every bit a negative consequence for noncompliance with conditions of supervision, equally a decision-making strategy that requires defendants to be productively occupied, or as a correctional strategy that provides a manner for defendants to acquire task readiness skills and job experience or broaden their network of assembly in a more productive direction. In add-on to the specific sentencing purpose to exist served, the desired by-production of customs service is e'er to benefit the community.

Likewise often, none of these goals are happening via court-ordered community service. Here's why:

The list of nonprofits given to those given court-ordered community service hasn't been updated in years and some of the nonprofits have plenty of volunteers already, or no longer accept people doing volunteer (unpaid) service considering of a court order, or fifty-fifty no longer be.
The volunteering that the recommended nonprofits on that list practise have is available merely during regularly work hours.
The nonprofits don't have the funding or training to involve these people in volunteer roles (volunteers are not free!).
The person who has to obtain court-ordered customs service has no idea how the process works, fifty-fifty what to say when calling a nonprofit to sign up to volunteer. They demand more guidance.

Allow's change that!

Why I intendance

I research volunteer engagement practices and volunteering, with an middle to what the best practices are for nonprofits, government programs and others to engage volunteers, I write and exercise trainings on what I learn, I am usually working with a nonprofit in a part where I am recruiting and supporting volunteers myself, and I am a volunteer myself.

In the office of manager of volunteers, I have been contacted by people that need to volunteer in guild to fulfill court-ordered community service, and my experiences with those folks has been largely positive: none who have managed to arrive through my screening process have e'er let me down equally a volunteer and, in fact, all have done at least a bit more than number of hours with me than they were required to.
In addition, I accept seen people posting on diverse online communities who demand such hours and I take been contacted past them directly likewise, and often, I'm the only person that's given them the total guidance they demand. About say that they oasis't gotten much guidance on finding community service, and they appreciate both how I treat them and the detailed data I give them.
I've besides heard from folks who have been ripped off by unscrupulous hucksters who say, in render for coin, they volition give a person desperate for hours for the court a letter saying that the person did those hours with a nonprofit - and not only do nearly courts not have this and the person gets into even more trouble, but information technology sullies the concept of virtual voiunteering, a very real and very of import form of volunteering.

I want better experiences for both those that engage in community service and those (nonprofits, community programs, etc.) that are expected to accommodate people who are assigned community service. I would like for people to accept an experience that prompts them to proceed existence involved in nonprofits as nonprofits.

Courts officers must learn why nonprofits involve volunteers

Staff members at most nonprofits are Not sitting around saying, "We have all this work to practise and if some people would just bear witness up, with no skills, no preparation, just a little time and good will in their hearts, we could get information technology all done." That'due south non why most nonprofits involve volunteers, particularly since volunteers are not costless: the staff at a volunteer hosting organization need to create volunteering opportunities, to supervise and support volunteers, to trouble-shoot and to evaluate and report on the experience.

If you ask an agency to create volunteering opportunities specifically for your court-ordered community service folks, you are request them to spend money and resources they may non be able to afford, and they may non have roles and tasks that just everyone, no matter their skills and experience, can do. Nonprofits, charities, schools and other organizations, more often-than non, demand volunteers with specific skills, experience and availability. And most of these programs have a priority to their clients and the services they provide, rather than a priority to conform absolutely anyone who needs customs service hours.

In brusque, nonprofits and other groups are limited by budget and expertise in terms of who they tin involve as volunteers. Many organizations, like Habitat for Humanity, oft have more people wanting to volunteer than they have opportunities, and therefore have to turn a lot of people away.

Here'due south more about why programs involve volunteers.

The godmother of training nigh volunteer appointment, Susan Ellis, wrote an fantabulous piece called Courtroom-Ordered Customs Service: Volunteers or Prison Labor? that does a great task of exploring the interest of court-ordered community service "volunteers" from the perspective of the organizations expected to involve such.

Courts must have better communication with those assigned community service

Courts, probation officers and others MUST exercise a improve chore of communicating with those who are assigned community service about what their options and how to arroyo organizations about volunteering.

For instance, those assigned community service need to be told, more than than in one case, that organizations need plenty of lead time before they involve an applicant: rare is the organization that can go an email at viii a.m. from someone wanting to volunteer and be able to conform that person that aforementioned 24-hour interval.

Those assigned customs service demand to exist told that they may need to volunteer at multiple nonprofits in guild to become all of the hours needed within a given fourth dimension frame.

You also need to warn them about community service scams, where the person assigned customs service pays money to a shady nonprofit that so gives that person a letter saying he or she completed a certain number of volunteering hours, though no volunteering is done: instead, the person might be asked to watch some videos or to fundraise among their friends on behalf of the nonprofit. Create a policy that your customs service folks may Non, under ANY circumstances, fundraise or pay to volunteer in order to fulfill their community service obligation, no exceptions. Paying a fee as a office of a volunteering program is automatically bad, equally this blog details, merely it'south merely too hard for court officers to figure out what's legitimate and what'due south not.

You need to requite those y'all assign community service guidance on how to contact a nonprofit in order to volunteer, and you need to do information technology more than once. For case, tell them all of the following, both in a document and in a video you set up:

Take It Seriously

No organization is under whatever obligation to involve you equally a volunteer, no affair how much you need those community service hours, and they can fire y'all immediately if they feel you accept violated their policies or even if they just don't think y'all're working out as a volunteer. You may be under more scrutiny because the arrangement knows you are performing this volunteer (unpaid) service because you lot have to, every bit compelled by a court. And so take your service seriously. Be a dependable volunteer who is polite, follows the rules, shows upward on time, and takes pride in getting tasks done appropriately and on time. If you miss shifts, violate policies, seem to not be taking tasks seriously, are goofing off, are unpleasant, are late, etc., you lot will probably exist dismissed.

Making Contact
When you lot contact an organization to enquire about community service hours, don't say immediately, "I have to have then many hours of customs service." Say, instead, "I desire to volunteer with your organization and want to know how I can get started correct away." You absolutely volition tell the organization about your community service obligation, but at a more advisable time. Once you find out nearly volunteering at the organization, and if you lot are interested in that volunteering, then you lot say, "I volition demand a letter by a certain date (and provide that date) that says how many hours I have volunteered at the organization, what I did as a volunteer, etc. I have to provide this to my probation officer/the judge in charge of my instance/my instructor at such-and-such highschool/university, etc. Will you exist able to provide that?" If they say yes, ask how your hours of service will be tracked - you lot may exist asked to track these hours yourself.

In respond to the question, "Why exercise y'all want to volunteer," on a form or in an interview, you should most certainly say that you are volunteering so that you tin fulfill mandated customs service - always be truthful about why yous demand community service hours. Only you can too say something nearly the organization'southward work that you like ("I care about the environment, I think the arts are important, etc."). When you are talking with the organization during your starting time orientation or interview, tell them how many hours y'all demand for your community service, and by what date.

Be honest near any and all convictions when yous are filling out your volunteering application. Some volunteer roles volition ask for your arrest record every bit well. An abort or confidence will Non necessarily disqualify you from volunteering (it depends on the organization, the type of work it does, the population it serves and the volunteer tasks). If your service is court-ordered or a part of your probation, you must be up-front in your interview and on your volunteering application about your conviction.

Organizations do Not have to have every person who wants to volunteer. If an organization says they can't involve you right now, say thank y'all and move on to another programme.

If the organization wants you to track your days and hours yourself, write your days and hours down on paper or on a spreadsheet on your computer, and keep this information up-to-date! Runway the days y'all volunteered, the times you volunteered, and a little near what you did.

Documenting/Tracking Your Hours

Practise Non await until your service is over to denote that you demand a letter confirming your hours, or that you need to system to sign your spread sheet. Tell the organization from the very outset that you will need a letter stating how many hours your contributed to the organization, the beginning appointment of your service, the finish date of your service, and a summary of what kind of service you provided.

If the organization wants you lot to track your days and hours yourself, write your days and hours down on paper or on a spreadsheet on your computer, and keep this data upwards-to-appointment! Track the days you volunteered, the times you lot volunteered, and a piddling about what you did.

Those assigned customs service should know that they could create their own experience at a nonprofit, if they tin discover a nonprofit to accommodate them: a spider web designer could assistance the local historical society create a ameliorate web site. A person with the right skills could edit raw videos a nonprofit has into an highly-seasoned presentation for that nonprofit's YouTube channel. A person who knows how to correct YouTube automated closed captioning could contact nonprofits with lots of YouTube videos and offer to correct those transcriptions.

Your list of opportunities needs to be updated and regularly re-verified

If your court plan hands out a list of programs you want to recommend to offenders for completing community service, you demand to contact those programs at least once a year to make certain they are, indeed, notwithstanding accepting courtroom-ordered folks as volunteers. Programs change, staff members change, priorities change - you probably won't hear that a program is no longer accepting courtroom-ordered folks equally volunteers unless you ask.

Hither are some groups yous might want to add to your list:

Local nonprofits that produce live theater, trip the light fantastic, music or any kind of operation. They may need ushers for performances, and volunteers can get ii to five hours of community service each time.
Local farmer's markets that are organized by nonprofits. They may need volunteers the dark earlier to put together nutrient boxes for subscribers, or need volunteers to help set up up or help dismantle a market.
Land department of fish and wildlife. They ofttimes take all-day or even all-weekend volunteering opportunities (volunteers must provide their own transportation and often bring their own tents and sleeping equipment).
In that location are local nonprofits that host overnight shelters for a modest number of families, often through communities of faith. These nonprofits need volunteers to just sleep in the facility overnight, often a church fellowship hall, and phone call if there are whatsoever problems in the nighttime. A volunteer tin can get at to the lowest degree ten hours in just i shift.
Meals on Wheels and nutrient banks are often in need of volunteers who can give many hours, not just one or two here and in that location.
Spider web sites that can assistance people find local volunteering opportunities, like like VolunteerMatch or All for Good or HandsOn Network.

Too, tell them to look for opportunities by looking for:

keywords on social media, like the discussion volunteer and the proper name of the person'southward city and land on Twitter, to encounter if local organizations are publicizing their volunteering needs.
online groups on Facebook, Reddit or other social media that are focused specifically on a local region, to run across if local organizations are publicizing their volunteering needs.

Virtual volunteering is existent volunteering

As noted before on this page, there are community service scams where the person assigned community service pays money to a shady nonprofit that then gives that person a letter of the alphabet maxim he or she completed a certain number of volunteering hours, though no volunteering is done: instead, the person might be asked to watch some videos or to fundraise amongst their friends on behalf of the nonprofit. Some of these scams make themselves as virtual volunteering. They are Non, because the person, in fact, does not do any actual volunteering.

But virtual volunteering IS real volunteering. Information technology's an established, credible practice with a history of more than 35 years. Online volunteers help nonprofits past transcribing their videos and podcasts for people with hearing impairments, researching topics online, translating text from ane language to another, making spider web pages accessible for people with disabilities, mentoring young people and so, and then much more.

One of the most readily available online volunteering opportunities is transcribing scans of historical documents - messages, speeches, newspaper stories, newspaper advertisements and more. Past transcribing these documents, online volunteers, the documents become more searchable for researchers and more than attainable to everyone. Through these programs, online volunteers are helping to amplify and preserve the stories of escaped enslaved people, the thoughts of and to people like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, people who attended political meetings held at the state and national levels in the 1800s to gratis enslaved people or proceeds women the vote, and on and on. I take a list of every online transcription project for online volunteers that I know about atthis resource on finding virtual volunteering roles and activities.

And the reality is that many people assigned customs service struggle to get those hours completed because of their work schedule or child-intendance obligations. It's the 21st century: it'southward overdue for courts to allow online community service.

I've involved court-ordered community service people as online volunteers. They went through the aforementioned volunteer awarding process as whatsoever potential volunteer, including saying what skills they had, their availability, etc. About half of the people who applied disappeared as soon equally they got the list of requirements: watching an orientation video, answering some followup questions, checking in every calendar week, etc. - they realized this was real volunteering, requiring real piece of work, so they didn't follow through. But those who did get through the process were but equally adept every bit most other volunteers: one guy researched a item subject for me, making a listing of organizations and their spider web sites that were focused on a specific topic, which I used to make a spider web site. Some other one populated a database for me with information I needed. Some other one created interactive forms I needed and didn't know how to do it myself. I was happy to write a letter of the alphabet for each of them to their court officeholder, saying what they did as a volunteer and how many hours they completed (which was always more than they needed for the court).

How tin can a court verify the hours a person spends doing virtual volunteering? For case, for participation in online historical transcription projects:

Require the volunteer to keep rail of service hours on a Google Doctor spreadsheet that that person gives you admission to for viewing, then y'all can check-in at whatever time to run across if they have updated it. It should take the name of the project or organisation, a web address for more info, the date and time of volunteering service provided by the volunteer, the hours or minutes spent, and a summary of what the volunteer did (�transcribed a letter by George Washington to Alexander Hamilton from June 1775.�). Check into that spreadsheet weekly or every other week to come across if it�s been updated.
Require that the volunteer take a photo on their smartphone every time they start transcribing a new document and every fourth dimension they finish, and that they upload this photo to a individual Flickr account anthology (Flickr is complimentary), i that simply the user (the volunteer) and you can see. You can spot check the time and date stamps on photos to see if the data corresponds to the aforementioned spreadsheet information (just spot check � you don�t have to do them all).
Require the volunteer have a screenshot of each document they are going to transcribe, and each transcription they complete, and to upload these screenshots to the aforementioned Flickr account anthology. This provides more documentation for confirming if a person did the assignment.
Require the volunteer accept a selfie of himself or herself at the computer, about to do the piece of work and then once again at the completion, and upload these screenshots to the aforementioned Flickr account private album that merely you lot and that volunteer tin see. This provides more than documentation for confirming if a person did the assignment.

Give the volunteer one to two hours of credit for service hours Simply for setting upwardly and maintaining the Google Medico and the Flickr account correctly.

As volunteerism skilful Susan Ellis oft pointed out, there are very few onsite, traditional volunteering activities where a volunteer is supervised the entire fourth dimension he or she is performing service. Instead, the volunteers is trained, then given a desk, or a piece of work space and materials, or a phone, or a garbage bag and some gloves, and then they do Nearly of their volunteering largely unsupervised. As someone who has been fooled more than a few times by a volunteer sitting at a desk-bound, looking at a computer screen for hours, and pretending to piece of work � and after a day or two, I detect out nothing is getting done � I�ve realized that volunteer supervision is much more than eyes-on-the-volunteer, or sign-in sheets at the door.

Could a volunteer fake all this record-keeping? Yes, and it would take that volunteer about as many hours to create the fake documents, screenshots and summaries as information technology would for them to do the Bodily volunteering and record-keeping � meaning they would withal take had to do all this time to fulfill community service hours, fifty-fifty if they didn�t end upward doing what they said they were doing.

Could someone else do all of this online service for the person? Yeah: a parent, a sibling, a friend, or someone the person pays could do all of this. And this happens in onsite, in-person volunteering. People also oft show up to volunteer at a beach make clean up every bit community service, sign in, go sit down in their cars and smoke or mind to music, so come dorsum at the stop and get their paperwork signed off that they did the hours. It�s the run a risk every program takes in not supervising people doing customs service every moment. While Lindsay Lohan probably had her assistant practise her online community service, I don�t think most people do.

Doesn�t assuasive people to practice their community service via online volunteering this create a lot of followup by the assigning body? Yes. And if I may exist blunt, you lot all have never done well in this department with onsite, face-to-face folks � I�ve seen the forged paperwork showtime-mitt for nonprofits that don�t exist or for nonprofits that have never seen or heard of the person that supposedly did the service. Allow this be your opportunity to up your game in terms of confirming court-ordered community service completion.

You need to help people frame volunteering experience on their r�sum�s

Your own plan materials say that assigning customs service can give the offender an opportunity to become work experience, job skills, and references. But how much guidance do you requite them in this regard? Do yous tell them how to notation a volunteering role on their r�sum�? Do y'all tell them HOW volunteering should be framed so that an employer would see the experience every bit an asset for an employee to have? Do yous tell them how to ask someone at a nonprofit to be a professional reference?

Also run across

Advice for hackathons / i-day tech events looking for projects to hack "for skillful"
How can hackathon or edit-a-thon organizers place projects or causes for a hack-for-skillful result? This 2014 offers ideas (all of which accept been incorporated into the page you are reading at present, simply you can contribute more than ideas by commenting on this blog).

Dos & don'ts for technical assistance volunteers / volunteers altruistic expertise
There are many people that desire to donate - to volunteer - their professional person skills or expertise to a nonprofit, NGO, charity, school or a community or ecology projection. They are sometimes called "skilled volunteers." These volunteers might build a spider web site, or build an app, or build a garden, or design a building, or provide legal assistance, and on and on, for a nonprofit, or even a regime program that engages volunteers and supports a particular community, like a women'south shelter or a dwelling house for people with fond problems. These are volunteers that are going to work primarily with a program's staff, including other volunteers, rather than directly with clients, only the outcome of their service may direct affect clients. Only these type of volunteering gigs don't always piece of work out, leaving both volunteers and programs frustrated and disappointed. The communication on this folio volition help anybody involved have a more worthwhile feel?

How Volunteers Can Apace Help Your Program To Be More Accessible Online
Most nonprofits, NGOs, charities, schools and other mission-based organizations will never be able to afford a professional web designer, allow alone one that tin can build a fully accessible spider web site. Yet, these organizations about certainly want people with disabilities to access their online information, just like any other donor, client, volunteer, participant, activist or other potential supporter. This resources talks about how volunteers can help whatever mission-based organization have a more accessible, more than welcoming web site.

Brusque-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers
There are a variety of means for mission-based organizations to involve volunteers to help with brusk-term projects relating to computers and the Internet, and short-term assignments are what are sought after well-nigh by potential "tech" volunteers. But there is a disconnect: near organizations have trouble identifying such short-term projects. This is a list of short-term projects for "tech" volunteers -- assignments that might takes days, weeks or simply a couple of months to complete.
Myths About Online Volunteering (Virtual Volunteering)
Online volunteering means unpaid service that is given by volunteers via the Net. It'southward as well known as virtual volunteering, online mentoring, ementoring, evolunteering, cyber volunteering, cyber service, telementoring, online engagement, and on and on. Hither is a list of common myths about online volunteering, and my attempt to counter them.
Creating One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities
Details on not merely what groups of volunteers can do in a two-hour, half-day or all-day event, but also but how much an arrangement or program will need to do to gear up a site for group volunteering. It'southward an expensive, time-consuming endeavor - are you ready? Is it worth it?
Using Video to Back up Online Volunteers/Remote Volunteers.
Video is a great mode to further support volunteers, and your reckoner probably already has all of the tools you need to make a video, or to appoint in a alive video conversation with others. Video isn't something to use merely with online volunteers or remote volunteers (those providing onsite service at a different location than yours). It'south also a tool you can use with new and current volunteers. In improver to an system producing videos for volunteers, it tin also piece of work the other fashion around: volunteers can produce videos for organizations. This resource provides information on your options, and links to my own short video on the subject area?

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