What motivated you to join the VCH team?
I had previously been working as a support worker at a homelessness charity and through that experience observed how crucial human connection and social inclusion are to improving a person’s holistic health and wellbeing. Through its various services, VCH seeks to do just this and so joining this organisation seemed like the natural next step!
Can you tell us about Community Befriending?
VCH’s Community Befrienders service is about meeting people ‘where they’re at’ – emotionally but also literally. Many of our service users are housebound and aren’t able to access activities in the community, so our befrienders visit them at home and provide some company in a familiar environment. We want to ensure that our service users feel comfortable, safe and that their needs are being met throughout the befriending process. It really improves the relationship between befriender and befriendee.
What do you enjoy about working at VCH?
I feel fortunate to work with a team of staff and volunteers who care deeply about both improving the individual lives of people in our borough, as well as developing new initiatives to engage whole communities whose voices often aren’t represented within other institutions or organisations. It’s fair to say that I work with a bunch of lovely people!
What are you most proud of?
I’m proud of the personalised service that we offer to all our service users and befrienders. As a team, we visit service users who have been referred to us and learn more about them and their lives. We recruit and then train every volunteer so that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to be a befriender.
Before we even match service users with befrienders, we spend time getting to know each of them. I think this is what I am most proud of – that we value people and their unique experiences as the beating heart of our organisation.
Top highlights?
I loved the most recent VCH Volunteers event during Volunteers Week in June. It was an amalgamation of volunteers from every service, which meant that I met lots of new, interesting people. There was also some communal singing, a quiz (which never fails to get my head spinning), lots of food and an award ceremony! I found it very rewarding seeing the instrumental role VCH volunteers play throughout our communities that evening.
Find out more about our Community Befrienders service here.