Young people who volunteer experience a clear improvement in feelings of gratitude, an Orygen study has found.
The study, undertaken by Tim Bramley for his clinical psychology Masters thesis, investigated the effects of volunteering on Jewish girls who participated in the Twelve Batmi Program, a program that engages 12-year-old girls and their parents to volunteer with charities across Melbourne to mark the girls’ batmitzvah or Jewish coming of age.
The volunteering included cooking and delivering meals to residents in government housing, visiting residents in aged care homes and making Mother’s Day hampers for mothers in refuges.
Mr Bramley said the research team assessed empathy, gratitude and life satisfaction by recording the girls’ thoughts at the beginning of the program and six months into the program. The study found that feelings of gratitude and empathy improved significantly over this time, with the girls feeling more socially connected.
Mr Bramley said the Twelve Batmi program not only provided many of the girls with a greater sense of gratitude, but also prompted the girls to want to help those who were less privileged.
“In this way, the program was more than just a feel-good exercise, it appears to have real-world social outcomes.
“Experiences like this, at the early stage of a young person's life may also have longer term effects that could influence moral development later in life,” he said.
The research is a collaboration between Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, and the University of Melbourne.