New roles and adaptations for young hospital volunteers

Since April, we have facilitated a series of peer support sessions for Volunteer Coordinators from NHS Trusts. Through these sessions, hospital volunteer coordinators have shared their experiences and challenges, and explored adaptations to their youth volunteering programmes. We published this briefing paper in April – since then, have continued to hear about the creative and thoughtful adaptations that volunteer teams have made to enable young people to continue volunteering. 

The following are examples of how our network of 32 NHS Trusts have been working with young volunteers during Covid-19. 

Roles based in hospitals

• Introducing a patient belonging hub. Young volunteers have been delivering patients belongings from families and friends up to the entrances of ward.
• Setting up a specific email address for family and friends of patients to send emails that are then printed off, laminated and distributed to the appropriate ward entrance.  
• Offering young volunteers the role to ring patients who have recently left hospital to hear how they are experiencing being home. Part of this role involves signposting people to local community support.
• Developing training and safeguarding procedures for young volunteers to work at the entrance of hospitals for the ‘meet and greet’ role. Young volunteers in this role are accompanied by a member of staff or security and have been providing ‘a friendly face behind the mask at the welcome desk.’
• Supporting the bereavement team – for example, returning possessions to family members as quickly as possible without the family having to come into the hospital.
• Establishing a volunteer hub. Many trusts have recognised the importance of having a physical space, even just a small space with a sofa, within the hospital for young volunteers. One volunteer coordinator thinks this has helped to build retention in the volunteering programme and is keen to keep this as a permanent space in the future.

Remote opportunities outside hospital settings

• Community response to making PPE – one volunteer coordinator team has been using an art centre in a community hall near the hospital. After carefully planning the risk management for this space, they have made and supplied over 30,000 gowns to their NHS Trust. ‘It started as there was a shortage of PPE and a need and everyone wanted to help… you get brains together and make it community-led, speak with other NHS Charities and pass on to each other what’s working and what’s not. An Art director from a school allowed us to use their sewing machines and volunteers wanted to help.’ 
• Setting up weekly activity packs to share with patients. These packs can be accessed online and create a way for young people to develop new ideas and to contribute but from outside the hospital. Packs include resources, activities and support for patients and families during Covid-19
• A 16-year-old volunteer created a pen pal system within the hospital called ‘Ward Wire’– volunteers writing to patients within the Trust.
• Running a telephone befriending service and finding creative ways to develop this idea – for example, some young volunteers have been sharing recipes or YouTube workout videos with each other.
• Testing out potential new roles involving tech support – digital championing roles. One Trust is responding to the increase in zoom appointments and is developing the equivalent of a meet-and-greet role to help people access and use tech. Young volunteers have been doing trial runs with patients before their outpatient appointments online – supporting both the patient during this process, as well as boosting the efficiency of the appointment schedule.

Maintaining communication

• Continuing Forums for young people. One Trust has moved their forums onto zoom and has maintained their monthly meetings. Each month the agenda/ theme is different and has been chosen by the young volunteers. For example, Black Lives Matter, mental health, long term health conditions, have all be topics explored during these monthly calls. 
• Developing relationships with new volunteers online. One Trust thinks this has been an inclusive process for many young volunteers who have preferred joining the volunteer programme by text and calls rather than face-to-face meetings straight away.
• Maintaining WhatsApp for groups of volunteers.

‘We’ve learnt new and smarter ways of working. Once this has settled, there will be a revaluation of what’s worked and what are new ways of working going forwards. This has been a massive learning and will impact how our young volunteers work in the future.’ 

You can find resources for setting up youth volunteering in your hospital here. They have been collated from 30 NHS Trusts and their respective charities, who have been welcoming young volunteers since early 2018 with support from the Pears #iwill Fund.