Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June): Celebrating our incredible volunteers at Nottinghamshire Healthcare

It’s Volunteers’ Week, 1 – 7 June, and we’re celebrating and recognising the fantastic work of our volunteers.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare has over 150 registered volunteers who give hundreds of hours of their time every week supporting our colleagues, patients and their families. Our volunteers bring skills, knowledge and a desire to make a difference to our services and the lives of the people we care for.

We spoke to Lucy Paine, who has been a volunteer at the Trust for 2 years. She began volunteering as she wanted to give back to the service that has supported her throughout the good and bad times in her life.

Lucy’s volunteering story:

Celebrating Volunteers’ Week: “Finding purpose in what was once a great struggle is the most fulfilling journey.”

It’s Volunteers’ Week, 1 – 7 June, and we’re celebrating and recognising the fantastic work of our volunteers. 

Nottinghamshire Healthcare has 185 registered volunteers who give hundreds of hours of their time every week supporting staff, patients and their families. Our volunteers bring skills, knowledge and a desire to make a difference to our services and the lives of the people we care for. 

We spoke to Samantha Houghton, who has been a volunteer for the Trust for 2 months. Living through her own experience of complex trauma for many years, Samantha feels very fortunate to be on the other side of significant difficulties with her mental and emotional health and talks about how this has helped her make a difference to those that have endured similar struggles.

Befriender Samantha Houghton

International Volunteer Day: Andrew's Story

Today is International Volunteer day, which recognises all the fantastic work volunteers do.

Andrew volunteers at our Involvement Centres and is going into his 10th year volunteering with us. He has chosen to share how he got involved with volunteering and his positive experience as a Monitoring of Infection, Cleanliness and Environment (MICE) and Patient Led Assessment (PLACE) Audit volunteer.

International Volunteer Day

5 December is International Volunteer Day. One of our volunteers, Thomas, has written his volunteering story.

How I volunteer

I am now an established volunteer for Nottingham Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, with all of my work based at their offices at Duncan Macmillan House on Portchester Road.

With well-established skills in software development, and more recently, qualifications and skills in website related development, my main area of volunteering is in developing a more dynamic front end to a website used for managing and reporting on the feedback of patients on the services which they have received from the NHS. More specifically, I will be replacing graphical information presented as a static picture with graphics generated dynamically from information in a database.

With experience of being on the autistic spectrum, I also volunteer for Story Shop afternoons. On such afternoons, a number of us travel to a venue (a local teaching hospital, the offices of the local authority, or a public library) to give an account of our health related experiences to successive groups of medical students, local authority employees, or interested members of the public. On such afternoons, I talk about my experiences of being on the autistic spectrum.

Taking Early Intervention in Psychosis to Africa

Community Psychiatric Nurse Tammy Palmer is traveling to Zimbabwe later this year to develop a pilot Early Intervention in Psychosis service.  Here, she talks about her motivation and hopes for the project and why she is embarking on the trip...

Working with the Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) Team has really shaped my life and passions within mental health nursing. I’ve worked with and seen so many young people experiencing psychosis for the first time and have been so privileged to be part of a team who help those young people, along with their families, to discover that there is a hope and a future, despite this really scary experience that can have so much stigma attached to it. It’s so inspiring, watching someone go from feeling extremely nervous and distrusting of themselves and others around them, to developing a new sense of confidence, supporting others, and moving on to succeed in their lives… so much so, that I have been inspired to take this specialist way of working to Zimbabwe - the place where I was born. 

That winning feeling

Trevor arriving at the awards

Trevor Clower is an active member of the Trust and our Involvement Centre, as a volunteer and parent carer. Trevor won the Unsung Hero Award at our staff awards, the Outstanding Service Contribution and Recognition Scheme (OSCARS), in March. Here’s how he felt to be a winner.

Getting a phone call to say I had been nominated for an OSCAR completely floored me. It was amazing to find out that so many people had written about me to put me forward for an award.

Being nominated was the most overwhelming experience I have had in my life, short of seeing my two children being born, that would always take precedence I feel.

I didn’t think the feeling of being nominated would ever be topped, until I arrived at the awards ceremony.

The power of volunteering

Saturday 5 December is International Volunteer Day. We’d like to say a big thank you to all of the volunteers who help our patients and service users, as well as those who help to shape and improve our services.

Over 250 volunteers and befrienders give up their time to help people at Nottinghamshire Healthcare. There are lots of opportunities available. Our two Involvement Centres are places where people can take part in lots of different activities, from being on interview panels to working on their own personal development.

There are also lots of ways to get involved directly with patients, from helping to collect feedback to serving customers in our tea shops.

Befriending and visiting roles are another important way volunteers help at the Trust. Rampton Hospital has its own befriending scheme, for patients who have little or no contact with the outside world. Befrienders are individually paired up with patients who have similar hobbies and interests.

Befriending is a really important role for patients who don’t have many visitors, as it gives them contact with the outside world and helps to stop them feeling isolated. There are currently 49 befrienders working at Rampton Hospital, as well as befrienders working at some of our other secure hospitals.

Alan Coomes has two voluntary roles with the Trust; supporting patients at Nottingham City Hospital and taking part in ward audits and interview panels as an involvement and experience volunteer. Alan said, “‘I’ve been on my own for a very long time. Volunteering gives me a structure to daily life. I enjoy giving something back.”

“Volunteering lifts me out of the negative feelings and promotes a sense of positivity. It gives me what I describe as the 6 Cs; Care for others, Compassion, Competence, Communication with others, Courage and Commitment.”

Jules is another volunteer, who shares her story with new staff as part of their induction. Jules also volunteers at The Story Shop, a project where people with experience of mental health issues share their stories with others to help raise awareness and reduce stigma.

Jules says: “I like a routine. I like to be with people. Volunteering gives me an opportunity to be with others. It takes me away from my four walls, and I like to think that I make people happy when I volunteer and share my journey as a service user.”

Lots of our volunteers talk about the structure and routine working with us gives them. When people have been unwell and unable to work, volunteering gives them a purpose. Volunteering is of course about giving, but for many people it also gives them something back, too.

If you would like to find out more about volunteering at Nottinghamshire Healthcare, visit the volunteering section of our website.

The road to employment: a volunteer's story

The stigma attached with mental health can make it really difficult to access volunteering and employment opportunities, and when you don’t have any routine or structured activity for a period of time, it can cause a real set back of confidence and self-esteem.

Danny Parr, from Nottingham, knows exactly how this feels since having mental health issues from the age of fourteen. However, with support from the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing Service and Notts County Football in the Community, Danny managed to take control of his life and would like others to hear about his journey.

“I have suffered with mental health issues from a young age. As with many people, the start of my journey was a harrowing experience which became a lot worse when I was admitted as an inpatient for the first time.

As a teenager with mental health issues, I entered a back and forth, in and out cycle of accessing services for the next five years. It was a negative experience but in spite of this, I overcame what, at the time, seemed to be insurmountable odds and began to take back control of my life. It was a slow process of trial and error with a lot of picking myself up and dusting myself down.

The key opportunity to gain control over my illness and my life, and to give me hope again, came when I began to have contact with the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing Team. Two people in particular from that team, Sangita Dhawan and Ian Kirkpatrick, have, over the years, fought my corner and supported my recovery. The team put me in touch with the Notts County Football in the Community scheme where I met four key coaches: Ian Richardson, Tom Curzon, Dave Ellis and Dave Parrott who have, for the past eight years, supported me and played a major and significant role in my ongoing recovery.

I started by going on a sports leadership award course. Afterwards, I was offered a volunteering placement with one of the junior football clubs as an assistant coach. With support from my coaches and the Nottinghamshire Healthcare team, I did this placement for nearly two years. I left this placement and moved on to do other things including getting involved in the Football in the Community project. This not only enabled me to fulfil my passion for football but also made me aware of my potential as an individual.

I have experienced many setbacks along the way, none more major than the tragic event of 30 August 2014 when I found my dad passed away on the kitchen floor of the family home. However, since this traumatic period I have lost six stone in weight, graduated as a Peer Support Worker and secured a very well paid job with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which is my first paid employment.

A volunteer co-ordinator from the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing team told me about the position at the CQC, which required someone with lived experience of mental health. I went through the job description and felt very excited. This role as an inspector would give me the opportunity to be someone other than a service user who could perhaps make a difference to the way services are delivered, by making appropriate suggestions for a more responsive service. The role required a lot of travelling and visiting various healthcare set-ups to see if the services were safe, effective, responsive, caring and well led.

Applying for this job was exciting but at the same time, I was worried about how I would perform at the interview and being turned down. But Ian – from the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing team - helped me with the application process and even prepared me for the interview by working on mock questions. The advice and practical support that I received helped me to perform so well at my interview that I was offered the job straight after the interview. It took a while for the news to sink in that I had finally got into paid work and I had another identity apart from being a service user with mental health issues.

I have been working for nearly a year now and continue to greatly enjoy my work. It has given me a sense of self belief and self worth as well as financial independence.    

I have also achieved a few qualifications such as the FA Level 1 Football Coaching badge and, through Notts County, attained the Sports Leaders Level 2 qualification. I was also awarded Disability Player of the Year for two consecutive years when captaining the Notts County Pan-Disability Championship side, managed by Tom Curzon who was the first to spot my potential and to give me a start.

All four coaches mentioned above gave me many pep talks and sound advice along the way and I owe a substantial chunk of my journey forward to both the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing Team, for empowering me to pursue and attain my ambitions, and to Notts County Football in the Community for giving me the opportunity to seize control and to stabilise significantly. Without these two services I wouldn’t be where I am today and they are cornerstones of my support network. I hope that by telling my story I can help empower others to achieve similar success in their lives and to make significant forward steps on their journeys of recovery.”

As part of Nottingham Mental Health Awareness Weeks, the Social Inclusion and Wellbeing Service are holding an Employment and Volunteer Fair on Friday 16 October for service users. For more information, please visit the Trust's website.

You've got a friend in me

Last week we shared Alexandra’s story; a mum helped by her local perinatal support service after struggling with anxiety and depression following her baby’s ill health.

Alexandra’s story isn’t a one-off though, and there are many more families in need of support. Emily, a full-time mum to three boys, is the Perinatal Volunteer Befriender who helped Alexandra to overcome her anxieties.

“I had three very different perinatal experiences” explains Emily. “The baby blues, pinks and a long period of anxiety, brought on by my youngest son’s diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome at three weeks old.

“When I heard Sure Start was looking for perinatal befrienders I jumped at the chance to be involved; it was the kind of support that I’d needed at my lowest periods.

“Alexandra was fantastic to be around and very open about her feelings. We went out and conquered lots of personal challenges together. Today, she is a lot more confident and knows she has great strengths and abilities, especially as a mum. She has overcome a lot in a short period of time. It’s simple but so effective, to know that someone is there for you; especially if they understand how you feel or what you’re dealing with.

“Befriending is great. I get to meet and socialise with lots of lovely new families. I enjoy the work role aspect too; I’ve gained lots of experience from working in the office and completing paperwork.”

“Children's Centres are priceless for mums” says Emily. “They can find out about what services are available that suit their needs and how their families can benefit. Brill!”

If you’re interested in becoming a Perinatal Volunteer Befriender, contact your local Children’s Centre Coordinator.