Volunteering

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 hear stories every week about the incredible difference volunteering makes to our service users and staff’s lives. We are so proud of our volunteers and the enormous contribution they make.

We’re always on the look-out for new volunteers and we’d love for you to join us.

What can I get involved in?

We have a range of volunteering opportunities for you to get involved in, including:

Gardening projects
Taking part in recruitment and selection panels
Training students
Gathering feedback on our wards
Administration support
Joining groups where you can give feedback

You can take a look at our full list of volunteering opportunities by clicking below.

This list isn’t exhaustive, so if there’s a project or a service you’d like to get involved in, just let us know and we’ll do our best to help.

Volunteering opportunities

Please note due to COVID-19 there may be some changes in the opportunities.

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!

Who can volunteer?

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’ll 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’ll take part in an induction day and then you’ll be all set to start in your role.

Get in touch

If you’d like to find out more about volunteering with us we’d love to hear from you.

All you need to do is drop us an email at engage@shsc.nhs.uk or give us a call on 0114 226 3367.

What are the benefits of volunteering?

There are loads of benefits to volunteering. Some people use volunteering to help develop their CV and gain experience. Others volunteer for the amazing sense of satisfaction you gain from helping others.

Whatever your reason for wanting to volunteer you set the pace at which you want to work.