This report outlines the rural volunteers for carers of people with dementia training program and evaluates its impact on carers, volunteers and health services staff. It discusses establishing and evaluating a training scheme for volunteers to support carers of people with dementia in two rural communities in Victoria, Australia (2018-19).

Key messages:

• Volunteers were engaged into existing local health services volunteer support mechanisms.
• Carers provided explicit and tacit criteria for participating. They variously wanted a volunteer of a particular gender, a volunteer with online skills and did or did not want people as volunteers that they already knew, in the small rural community.
• Volunteers were generally satisfied with the training and information learned. A particular benefit was meeting like-minded people in their community.
• After volunteering for 12 months, volunteers reported enjoyment; specifically, from meeting new people and providing support to people in need.
• The program was useful and appreciated but requires commitment from local health services to support it and strong partnership working with local service partners.