Services — Community Services — Volunteer Services
Volunteer Services
Becoming a volunteer at bid services is a great way to become involved with local community members who are Deaf, deafened or Hard of Hearing.
British Sign Language Skills are not essential as there are volunteer opportunities within all areas of hearing loss from profoundly deaf through to deafened and hard of hearing people - many of whom have additional needs.
The work you will be asked to undertake is matched to your communication skills.
The main role of volunteers at bid services is to help and encourage clients to live independently by providing support for a variety of normal everyday activities. This could be anything from going for a walk, social outings, attending Deaf clubs and events or something as simple as having a nice cup of tea and a chat.
Working with our volunteers….
We make sure all of our volunteers are warmly welcomed and treated with respect. You are giving us your time; commitment and devotion to helping people live more independent lives – something we don’t take for granted.
All travel expenses are covered and in addition to this there are some fantastic skills development and training opportunities that you can undertake to enhance your skills further.
The Legal bit….
Before you embark on any volunteering work you must have an Enhanced Disclosure with the Criminal Records Bureau - commonly known as a CRB check. All of our staff and volunteers are subject to this as it is an important part of our policies and procedures around recruiting volunteers.
bid services is proud to have met the required standard to become an approved provider of the National Standard for Mentoring and Befriending foundation and will shortly apply for Investors In Volunteers (IIV) status.
The case studies from the volunteer experience with clients are shown on the right.
Volunteer Case Study 1
Volunteer name is false and has no relation to any client.
I believe that by befriending Jane, she has benefited in a number of ways.
Jane is a widowed lady in her early seventies, she is a wheelchair user and was dependent on her husband for her needs. Her only family is a daughter who lives in Canada and an older sister living in Manchester.
Jane is unable to climb stairs, therefore is confined to one room with her bed and a commode.
Using the ring and ride bus service once a week Jane can go to the deaf club for a few hours. She has carers for one and a half hours daily, the remainder of her day she spends alone in her room reading and watching television.
I visit her once a week to give the opportunity for conversation and doing normal things like shopping for new clothes or household items that she needs. With my support she is able to choose these things for herself.
I take Jane to the bank, post office, hairdressers, and chiropodist or wherever she needs to go.
Future activities we have planned are to visit the farmer's market at Kings Norton Green and also a tour of the Saracen's Head, a recently restored historic building. Jane also enjoys a walk in the park (in her wheelchair) with a cup of tea or coffee on the way round.
In the future I would like the opportunity to continue to help people like Jane to have some quality to their lives.
From my experience the volunteer service provided by bid services is very valuable. I believe this service can and does make a real difference to the lives of many deaf people in the community. A volunteer giving a few hours a week will be giving the support that is needed to make a difference and improve the quality of life for deaf people of all ages. In many cases being deaf is not their only disability.
Volunteer Case Study 2
I have been visiting my client for about 6 months on a weekly basis. It has taken that time to begin to get to know her and her capabilities, her interests and what we would both enjoy doing and how I can be of benefit to her.
We have been to the Women’s health group, Deaf Arts Festival, into Birmingham, Cadbury World Museum, Barber Institute art gallery and Lapworth Geological Museum at the University, we went to a garden centre to buy a tomato plant so the client can produce healthy home grown food to eat. We also visited the Nature Centre and local parks.
We have tried to use different buses and walk so the client has as much excerise as possible. The client seems to have quite a few health problems, some of which could be due to lack of exercise, so I have been trying to encourage her not to use taxis when she could walk.I have been trying to help the client with money so she doesn't rely on me to sort it out, but builds up her confidence to give the correct amount.
I have tried to help the client with healthier eating, talking with her and key workers about what food she buys and eats. At the moment she has a very limited diet. I try to encourage more fruit and vegetables, hence the tomato plant.
I try to build up the client's confidence in going out, overcoming initial problems which always come up to stop her coming out for the morning.
I feel the client is just beginning to benefit from my support. It takes about six months to get to know her and how I can support her. I feel the longer I support her and know her the more difference I could make. To start with it was quite hard and the client also had to build up trust, but now I think she takes advice and hopefully is beginning to act on it.
In the future I would like to continue developing the areas I am already working on with the client. I would like to see the client's gardening interests develop and take on more responsibility in her garden. It may be possible to get her a work placement one day a week at Nature Centre or other gardens.
I do think the volunteer service is valuable, but feel that six months isn't long enough to achieve any big results, but it is all valuable. It gives a chance for the volunteer to get to know the client, be a friend, but at the same time help the client where possible to greater independence and overcome problems that they have. I would like to see more liaison with key-workers; although always helpful, staff change over is rapid so it is hard to get continuity and history about the client.