{"id":2970,"date":"2021-09-08T10:23:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T10:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/?post_type=stories&p=2970"},"modified":"2021-10-01T10:24:35","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T10:24:35","slug":"the-power-of-peer-volunteering","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/stories\/the-power-of-peer-volunteering\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of peer volunteering."},"content":{"rendered":"

The power of peer-volunteering: Life Recovery\u2019s Deputy Manager Vicki Saunders and peer-volunteer Nikki share their experience of working together to deliver the Life Course.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Volunteering can be life-changing, as many inHope volunteers will testify. Giving time to help others can provide people with a purpose, self-value and a sense of community. The route into volunteering can be wide and varied. Some people look for volunteering opportunities. Others volunteer through their workplace. Many are invited through a friend, or a contact at their church.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Nikki was asked to volunteer with Life Recovery, it was an area of work that she already knew lots about, having been a participant in the Life Course in the autumn of 2020. \u201cI really enjoyed doing the course. But after I finished I was struggling a little bit and needed something else to do. I always felt like I wanted to work in this kind of service, with people. When Vicki asked me to help, I thought it would be really good and that it would give me a bit of structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her previous experience as a participant and her lived experience added another dimension to Life Course facilitation, helping bringing the content to life. \u201cI just kind of chimed in with my experiences when I thought there was something helpful I could say,\u201d said Nikki modestly. With the course taking place on Zoom, due to a coronavirus lockdown, Nikki would lead discussions within breakout rooms, facilitating and guiding the participants through the course material. \u201cWhen participants gave feedback [at the end of the course], they said it was quite nice that somebody had been through it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikki\u2019s volunteering didn\u2019t stop at the end of that Life Course. \u201cI\u2019m going to lead the next course with Ant which I\u2019m looking forward to. That will be a face to face course. And I\u2019ve been sitting in on assessments for people who have applied to go on the course.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a beautiful thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nikki\u2019s peer-volunteering role has made an incredible difference to the Life Course, as Vicki explained. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more powerful than the voice of someone who has experienced the Life Course. It\u2019s all well and good us teaching the course, but having somebody who has experienced it themselves come back and share their experience with others really helps participants to feel at ease. A lot of it has been about lived experience, including adding that first-hand perspective to the sessions. We\u2019ve built a relationship with Nikki as a volunteer, where we\u2019ve been able to talk about the course material \u2013 finding out what\u2019s helpful and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s just a beautiful thing to see how far Nikki\u2019s come from the course. We didn\u2019t really talk lots on the course, but I just had a vision that God was going to do some really good things with her life and that he was calling her to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikki agrees that she\u2019s gain a lot from volunteering. \u201cIt was really rewarding. I got a lot of satisfaction out of it. I think it\u2019s really important to use your past to help people \u2013 I\u2019ve always had a strong sense of the importance of using your experiences to help something good come from it.<\/p>\n

I think as well that volunteering has helped with my own confidence. It\u2019s given me the experience of being in this sort of environment and reaffirming what I want to do. It\u2019s really helped for me to figure out that I definitely want to work with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out that co-leading a Life Course with Vicki was only the start. Along with co-leading the next course (with Deputy Manager Ant Newman), Nikki\u2019s been involved in supporting a new after-care group, for participants who have completed a Life Course.<\/p>\n

Vicki explained, \u201cToday was our first after-care group. This is something that\u2019s new to Life Recovery. It\u2019s a very relaxed session without a real structure, but just an opportunity to find out how they\u2019ve been getting on. Some of their feedback is about how much they want to get involved with the things that Life Recovery is doing, and the wider work of inHope.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been really clear with Nikki that this is quite early days for Life Recovery to be doing this sort of work. So Nikki\u2019s been a bit of a guinea pig. As she\u2019s been working with us, we\u2019ve been developing our policies and procedures that help us to put things in place so that we can have more peer support volunteers helping in this way giving them the best volunteering experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

A really positive future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vicki is full of praise for how Nikki has approached her role. \u201cI\u2019d like to say thank you to Nikki for giving us the pleasure of coming in and helping and serving other people, and using her lived experience. It\u2019s been such a pleasure to have her with us and we feel really blessed to have her as a peer-volunteer within the team. She\u2019s come with the skills already and has been amazing with the clients.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s helped Nikki to explore other opportunities, and she\u2019s now going to go on to do some training with another organisation in this area of work. The future for her is going to be really positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikki starts her training in September, and once that\u2019s completed she can begin a peer support role. Although this means she\u2019ll have to stop volunteering with Life Recovery, she will take good memories with her. In particular, having co-led a course that met mostly on Zoom she enjoyed a group trip to try some archery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I took part in the course it was in person and you kind of build relationships with people, and you can talk in the break and it helps people to feel more comfortable. On Zoom you\u2019ve not got that, so it was really nice to go out and do archery and to see the group all together.<\/p>\n

One of the guys was talking at that last session, and he could remember so much stuff from the course. Sometimes you think he wasn\u2019t paying attention, so it\u2019s really nice to see that he has been taking it in.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Nikki is full of encouragement for anyone else who was thinking about volunteering. \u201cI would definitely say to just do it! You get so much from it, and I\u2019ve always felt so comfortable being in the office and part of the team. It\u2019s just a nice environment and it\u2019s been lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2955,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"story_type":[36],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe power of peer volunteering. - inHope<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/stories\/the-power-of-peer-volunteering\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The power of peer volunteering. - inHope\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The power of peer-volunteering: Life Recovery\u2019s Deputy Manager Vicki Saunders […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/stories\/the-power-of-peer-volunteering\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"inHope\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/inHopeBristol\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-01T10:24:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/story-Portrait.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1170\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@inHopeBristol\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/stories\/the-power-of-peer-volunteering\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.inhope.uk\/stories\/the-power-of-peer-volunteering\/\",\"name\":\"The power of peer volunteering. - 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