Our volunteers bring their skills, their knowledge and a desire to make a difference to our services and the lives of the people we care for.
We train, support and develop our volunteers so they can play a meaningful and valuable role.
We are always on the look-out for new volunteers and we would love for you to join us.
Volunteering is a fantastic thing to do and you can enjoy the amazing sense of satisfaction you gain from helping others. You can also meet new people, learn lots of different skills and gain experience of working in the NHS. All of this can boost your own self esteem and wellbeing as you give back to others.
Whatever your reason for wanting to volunteer you set the pace at which you want to work.
We have a range of volunteering opportunities for you to get involved in, including:
You can take a look at our full list of volunteering opportunities by clicking below.
This list isn’t exhaustive, so if there is a project or a service you would like to get involved in, let us know and we will do our best to help.
| Role | Information | Commitment | Where | Specific requirements |
| Shared Reading | This is an opportunity to read great literature and poetry aloud to service users on acute wards, forensic wards and within dementia services. If you have a love of literature and poetry and enjoy being part of a group this could be for you. | Usually once a month for 1.5 hours | City-Wide |
Lived experience as a Service User/Carer Public |
| Being part of an interview panel | The Trust aims to have a service user or carer on interview panels | Various | Various – City Wide | Lived experience as a Service User/Carer who has completed Recruitment and Selection Training. Please get in contact if you haven’t completed this and are interested in being part of our interview panels we can arrange this training for you |
| Ad-hoc opportunities | If you do not want to commit to a regular fixed session of volunteering you can be on a “bank” where we can keep your details on our secure database and contact you if there are one-off opportunities that come up or it may just be a survey or questionnaire sent to you via email / post (whichever is your preference) | Various | Various – City Wide |
Lived experience as a Service User/Carer Public |
| Placement with Medical Education | Delivering training to students. Contribute to the planning, delivery and evaluation of training for Medical and Physician Associate students on psychiatry placement. To share ideas about ways of achieving Recovery goals, drawing on personal experiences and a range of coping, self-help and self-management techniques. |
Various | Trust headquarters |
Lived experience as a Service User/Carer |
| Accompanying service users on trips | Ad-hoc, can be taking service users shopping, to football matches etc | Various/Ad-hoc | Various |
Lived experience as a Service User/Carer Public |
| Supporting Quality of Experience Survey Collection | The Quality of Experience Survey is a questionnaire to understand people’s experience of their time on the ward to inform future improvements. | Various | Longley / Michael Carlisle Centre | Lived Experience as a Service User on an acute ward/Carer for someone who has been on an acute ward |
| Providing artwork for publicity | Ad-hoc opportunities to provide artwork for fliers, leaflets, posters etc | Various – to suit your needs | N/A | None |
This list of opportunities is not exhaustive… please get in contact if you have any ideas of what you would like to do or even if you don’t know – we are here to talk to you and find out what’s best for you and our services!
To volunteer with us you must be over the age of 18 and willing to commit to at least six months of volunteering.
As part of your application you will meet with us to discuss your skills and your aspirations. When we have identified a volunteering role for you we’ll ask you to provide two references, agree to an occupational health check and undergo a Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) check which we’ll cover the cost of.
Once all of these steps have been completed you will take part in an induction day and then you’ll be all set to start in your role.
If you would like to find out more about volunteering with us we would love to hear from you.
Please email us at engage@shsc.nhs.uk or call 0114 226 3367.