Devon health & well-being charity launches campaign to recruit more volunteers

As UK Volunteers Week begins (1 - 7 June) , a local health and wellbeing charity is launching a campaign to swell the ranks of its existing army of award-winning helpers. Westbank Community Health and Care, based at Exminster near Exeter, relies on over 600 volunteers to help deliver a range of support services to individuals and communities across Devon. 

Last year, Westbank’s Neighbourhood Friends volunteers received royal recognition for their service during the pandemic with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. This year, the charity hopes to take on even more volunteers to help more people in need across Devon. 

The charity’s Neighbourhood Friends scheme supports patients leaving Exeter’s RD&E hospital and Devon’s community hospitals. Volunteers collect and drive home discharged patients, taking them to all parts of Devon and sometimes further afield.  Many people who live alone have no one else to support them and rely on Westbank’s volunteers for practical tasks like food shopping and prescription collection. Above and beyond this, the volunteers are ‘friendly faces’ and someone to talk to.

Nina Parnell, Head of Volunteering & Community Services at Westbank, says, “Volunteers Week is a time to say thank you to the hundreds of selfless volunteers who already support us by giving up their time to help others, and we’ll be holding a party to do just that. However, we also want to use this opportunity to appeal for more voluntary helpers and tell them about the many benefits of becoming a volunteer and the diverse and flexible roles that are available at Westbank. We hope people will be inspired by the stories of our volunteers, who tell us that giving back to their community makes them feel great in return. It really is time well spent.” 

Neighbourhood Friends volunteer Adam Giles-Wilson from Honiton says, “As I live on my own, I can understand how some people feel - how the little things are very important to them, even if other people can’t see it or understand it. It makes you feel good, knowing that you are doing something positive and putting something back into the community, and it could just be a little bit of your time. It makes such a difference to someone who’s on their own.” 

There’s plenty of evidence that helping others has a positive impact on the lives of volunteers, boosting their self-esteem and well-being as well as helping them gain new skills. Research last year by YouGov, commissioned by Neighbourly, found organisations that offer employee volunteering programmes have happier workers who are more productive, take fewer sick days and are more likely to trust and recommend their employer. These positive effects have been shown to last up to three months after the volunteering period has ended.

Chris Walledge from Exminster works four days a week as a lawyer. Four years ago, he began volunteering as a Neighbourhood Friend on Wednesdays. He says, “I spend most of my days staring at a computer screen. It’s really nice to have a change in the middle of the week, to meet people and be able to help them in a very practical way. I found that helping people on my day off actually helped me as well, so it’s a really positive choice and it fits in flexibly with my life.”

The pandemic shifted the nature of many kinds of volunteering from in-person to remote or virtual services, transforming the demographics of volunteering by opening up opportunities to thousands of people who were potentially anxious about meeting new people in a strange environment. Westbank’s Neighbourhood Friends volunteers continued to meet people in person throughout the Covid-lockdowns, clocking up more than 66,000 miles between the start of April 2021 and the end of March this year.

Jade Rouse from Exeter, one of the charity’s younger helpers, started volunteering during the pandemic alongside her NHS work in mental health: “My mum works at Westbank and through the pandemic I thought I’d help out. I volunteer after work and at the weekends if needed, and I really enjoy it. The world we live in is very money driven. My friends ask me, why work in my spare time for free? I just like helping people and making a difference.”

People interested in finding out about the flexible and rewarding roles available with Westbank can discover more and sign up at: westbank.org.uk/why-volunteer