By Jane Owen, Volunteer Coordinator
This volunteer started her volunteering with us back in the first lockdown. She had a very traumatic experience in her life and this still impacts on her daily life. She was allocated a lady to call who has severe mental health issues, schizophrenia and severe depression. After the first call of the week, the volunteer found out that this lady was very much on a down with her depression. Because of this the volunteer rang her every day just to enquire how she was. It was only after the fact that the volunteer called me to inform that she had kept in touch with this lady during the week. Because of the volunteers past and the calls made to the participant the volunteer found her own past intruding on her again and called me. As I had recently completed the mental first aid course, and because of my background I was able to offer the volunteer the support needed and followed up with a phone call to the participant who was so grateful that she had someone to talk too outside of her professional support.
The following day I received a lovely email from the volunteer;
‘Hi Jane
Thank you for your much appreciated support yesterday. I hope you too have someone you can turn to if you ever need to.’