Volunteering

Why did you become a volunteer?  

I have been working with young people for over 19 years as a qualified Mentor and Youth worker professional. The experience learnt has provided me with the passion and enthusiasm towards making a positive contribution around mental health. Throughout the last seven and half years, I decided to put these skills and knowledge into good practice by supporting adults and patients with mental health support needs. 

What do you gain personally from volunteering?  

With the years gone by, I've really enjoyed working together with patients and their social workers to design and deliver bespoke programmes for each patient. 

One programme involved supporting a patient to write a letter to the mother of his child to improve communications between the two of them as parents. For another patient, I put together a presentation based on his country of origin and presented this to him during one of our meetings.  

One of my stand-out achievements as a volunteer has to be when I was selected out of many volunteers to write an article which featured in one of the Hospital’s bulletins.  

 What difference do you think you are making for the team? 

As a respected and accomplished volunteer within the team, I was invited to deliver a PowerPoint presentation in last Autumn about my effective ways of working with service users during an induction for new volunteers. I felt honoured and well appreciated from my peers to be involved in this delivery.  

Last year, before the Queen’s death, I was nominated for the Jubilee Queen’s Awards by my volunteer supervisor based on my volunteer work at the Hospital. It was a huge honour to be considered for such a prestigious award, let alone shortlisted.

Would you recommend this type of volunteering and why?  

I would definitely recommend this type of volunteering. It is a particularly interesting role for people working or studying sociology or criminology and for anyone interested in the general mental health area. 

Our Pets As Therapy (PAT) programme is supporting staff and patients' well-being by offering animal companionship provision, as reported by Luca (pictured) and his human, Poonam Bhogal, one of our dedicated PAT volunteers, who is also a member of staff at the Trust.

Through the PAT programme, Poonam and Luca have been able to offer:

• 43 hours of volunteering within 6 months
• support to 51 patients and staff

through one volunteer.

Poonam says:

I really enjoy bringing Luca into work with me as I find it really cheers up my co-workers, and creates a positive and happy environment. The staff enjoy having Luca around and always ask when he is in next.

I notice change in staff’s mood where they are more smiley and they take time out to come to play and see him. It breaks up everyone’s day and I can see how it helps improve their mood.

For me, I love being able to make a positive impact for my team and seeing how having Luca makes such a difference to people. Not just staff, but also patients we visit. It’s hard to explain in words.

I feel so grateful that West London NHS Trust are able to support this scheme.

This Student Volunteering Week (13-19 February) we would like to thank all the students who offer their time and volunteer in a range of roles at West London NHS Trust.

We spoke to Jasmine Dancel, a postgraduate student at the University of Westminster, about her volunteering experience at the Trust.

Read about her volunteer journey here.

Celebrating our volunteers 

Our volunteers are valuable contributors at the Trust, they help us go a little further in our care for patients and staff wellbeing. Throughout the year we say thank you to our volunteers in many ways but it's our annual staff Excellence awards that recognise and celebrate our 'Volunteer of the Year.' 

Volunteer of the Year Award 2024 

(pic centre: Julian Bridgeman)

In 2024 Social Visitor Volunteer, Julian Bridgeman was awarded the 'Volunteer of the Year Award' at the West London NHS Trust Excellence Awards. Julian has been supporting patients at Broadmoor Hospital with positive and non-judgemental contact and relationships that are important to the patient recovery. He has gone above and beyond by shaping not just delivering activities for his patients pushing the boundaries for positive impact focused volunteering in a high secure setting and building a legacy in the role too by training new volunteers.

On receiving the award, Julian said: “For me the reason why I do what I do is because I like to make an impact on the patient experience. And for me, I couldn’t do this without the grace of God, grace of family and close friends. That’s impact for me with the people that I have around me.” 

Volunteer of the Year Award 2023

In 2023 Cycling Lead volunteers, Marion Arundel and Adrian Camm, were jointly awarded the 'Volunteer of the Year Award' at the West London NHS Trust staff Quality awards. Marion and Adrian have been supporting the Trust’s Green plan sustainability objectives by helping staff at the Trust take up cycling to work and be part of the West London Get Fit community.  They have also led cycling sessions for Trust staff and the local community, offering practical support and answering cycling queries.

On finding out about the award, Adrian said: “I was surprised and rather humbled to win the award along with Marion, as I’m sure there are many other volunteers who also deserve recognition. Our work over the year to encourage and support cycling across the trust has been a team effort along with colleagues in the Facilities team, so I feel this is for them as well”

Their work alongside our Travel and Transport team resulted in the Trust being awarded two Gold cycle friendly employer plaques by Cycling UK.​​​​​​​