Boundaries protect the volunteer most

Especially in services where people are in difficulty.

In settings involving people in distress, volunteers are frequently the most exposed and least protected participants. They are close to the work, emotionally engaged, without professional training, and without the supervision structures that paid staff have.

Clear boundaries are what makes that survivable: what a volunteer does and does not do, whether they give out contact details, what happens when somebody discloses something serious, and who they hand over to. Volunteers who have not been told will improvise, and improvising in those situations carries real risk to everybody.

Debriefing matters equally and is the first thing dropped when a service is busy. A volunteer who has had a difficult shift and goes home without speaking to anybody is carrying it alone, and a substantial proportion of volunteer attrition in these services follows a single bad experience nobody knew about.

Where a volunteer role genuinely requires handling something serious, that is an argument for training and supervision rather than for pretending the requirement is not there.

The other boundary that protects volunteers is financial. Volunteers in services working with people in hardship are frequently asked for money directly, or offer it, and a clear organisational position on that protects everybody, including the volunteer who would otherwise be making an individual decision in a difficult moment.