Weston, Alisha (2008) Retaining Telephone Counsellor Volunteers at Lifeline Darling Downs and South. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Many volunteer organisations experience extreme difficulties with being able to successfully recruit and retain their volunteers. This has been the case for Lifeline Darling Downs and South West Queensland, a non-profit telephone counselling service in Toowoomba. This organisation has experienced high levels of volunteer turnover in the past 12 months. This research project was designed to investigate some of the possible factors that contribute to volunteer retention. In particular, this paper attempted to consider the influence of counselling self-efficacy on volunteer retention. Participants consisted of 40 telephone counsellors (31 women and 9 men), from Lifeline Darling Downs and South West Queensland. They were requested to complete 2 surveys that were designed specifically for Lifeline Telephone Counsellors. These surveys measured TCs’ satisfaction with; accreditation, supervision and the organisational climate. Participants were also required to complete an inventory that measured their counselling self-efficacy, a scale that measured their emotional well-being at work, and a scale that measured their intentions to leave Lifeline. This study’s findings revealed that there was a significant negative relationship between satisfaction with accreditation and organisational satisfaction with intentions to leave. There was found to be no relationship between counselling self-efficacy and intentions to leave; and counselling self-efficacy and satisfaction with supervision. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between levels of counselling self-efficacy based on years of telephone counselling experience, and no significant difference between levels of counselling self-efficacy and level of training. The small number or participants and confinement to 1 group of volunteers in 1 organisation limits the generalisability of the current findings. It is recommended that future researchers utilise a larger sample of both current and retired volunteer telephone counsellors from different organisations.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Sciences - Department of Psychology (Up to 30 Jun 2013) |
| Supervisors: | Gavin Beccaria |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Nov 2025 00:43 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Nov 2025 00:43 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52868 |
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