Flying the Flag for our Volunteers – Healthwatch East of England Regional Conference
About the Event
The event was hosted by Diana Blackmun the CEO of Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire, and was led by a talk given by Imelda Redmond, who is the director of Healthwatch England. There were also some workshops running on subjects that are common to all Healthwatch, to act as a forum to share ideas and knowledge.
Engagement and Volunteering Workshop
Alice, Tom, and Jo, were pleased to attend the interesting Engagement and Volunteering workshop; it highlighted how each Healthwatch has a different approach to working with volunteers, reflecting the landscape and geography that we are all working within, as well as the size of our organisation.
We were proud to speak about our Talk to Us stalls, and the great work that our volunteers have been doing on that. It may even be that, due to our monthly presence at Lister Hospital, we have more feedback on Lister Hospital than anywhere else in the county.
We are now going to have a monthly presence at Watford General Hospital, so that we can learn more about what is going on in the west of the county. Last month we began holding the stall, with one of our newest Community Ambassadors, Colin. It was a success! We look forward to receiving more feedback from the public at the hospital, which we publish in our monthly Volunteer Newsletter.
We were able to proudly speak about our Community Ambassadors and the work they have been doing so far in their areas, including Stevenage and East Herts, to raise awareness of the organisation.
Sharing ideas
Other local Healthwatch talked about how they link up their volunteers with each other, in a kind of ‘buddying’ scheme of mentoring, similar to how our Enter & View Authorised Representative volunteers are trained on the job. There was also discussion of how Trustees volunteer and the varying degrees to which they get involved with carrying out specific volunteer roles.
The overarching theme that came out of the workshop was that we can’t do without volunteers, but also that we can always do with more volunteers. Every Healthwatch said they would like more volunteers to help them carry out their work, and that includes us.
