The ‘Branch Connection’ is a feature on GoAssemble that allows a nominated branch volunteer to reach out to SSAFA volunteers in their area—even if those volunteers are managed elsewhere in the organisation. It’s all about helping everyone feel part of their local branch community.

To make sure every volunteer has a positive experience with SSAFA it’s important that everyone has the opportunity to benefit from the support and sense of community that belonging to the local branch brings, even when their volunteering activity is managed from elsewhere in SSAFA. For example, caseworkers who report directly to a regional office aren’t automatically visible to their local branch on GoAssemble.

This is where the Branch Connection comes in. It helps branches know who else is volunteering nearby and gives them a way to invite those volunteers to local events and activities - helping everyone feel part of the wider SSAFA team.

Each branch will nominate an allocated Branch Contact, who will have the permissions allowing them to invite the Branch Connection volunteers to social events. Branch chairs can choose the most suitable person for this role. Full guidance for branch chairs on the ‘Branch Connection’ can be found here.

All Caseworkers and visitors in current NDP areas have now been set up with a ‘Branch Connection’ to their local branch, which enables them to receive invitations to branch events, via GoAssemble. For full details please review the guidance for service volunteers.

As we continue to roll out NDP, the ‘Branch Connection’ will automatically be set up for all casework and visitor volunteers, during branch migration and going forward, once a new casework volunteer completes their induction, they will be linked to their local branch.

In the future we plan to provide volunteers from across all our services with a link to their local SSAFA branch.

For specific guidance on Branch Connection please review the following guides:

• Guidance for Branch Chairs
• Guidance for Branch Contacts
• Guidance for Branch Connection volunteers
• GoAssemble set up guide for employees

For general NDP information please read the NDP Frequently Asked Questions document, which is a collection of questions that have been posed during and since the trials.

For detailed NDP processes and procedures go to The Volunteer Knowledge Base – accessible to all volunteers and employees.

If you are looking for a wide variety of information and wish to view video clips from NDP Caseworkers and previously recorded presentations about the NDP then the place to be is the NDP Information Hub on SSAFAnet.

If you no longer have access to SSAFAnet, you will already be on GA, so please refer to the NDP file in the document hub or head to the Volunteer Knowledge Base.