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Listen to the interview with Julia Neuberger in our podcast (10 mins)

As a nation we are pretty good at volunteering, says Gordon Brown’s personally appointed volunteering champion Julia Neuberger in an interview with MBF for Rapport magazine.

But she would like to see more mentoring and befriending and volunteering activity across the public sector especially within the health service. In this interview, she repeats her message that volunteering should become part of “the DNA of society,” and that there should not be a “cover my back” approach to CRB checks.

She says mentoring and befriending programmes have an important part to play in many areas of volunteering activity and in helping to bring about community integration and cohesion.

Referring to quality standards such as APS she says “it is absolutely essential” that projects can access examples of good practice. In her recent report for the Prime Minister, ‘Volunteering in the public services: health and social care’ she referred to MBF as a source of good practice.

Listen to the interview with Julia Neuberger in our podcast (10 mins)

Read the interview in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapport magazine