Celebrating our community this Volunteers’ Week: 1-7 June 2022

Kelly, volunteer programmes manager, discusses her role and celebrates the work of our wonderful volunteers

Celebrating our community this Volunteers’ Week: 1-7 June 2022

1-7 June is Volunteers’ Week, a time to celebrate the incredible work of volunteers who bring so much to organisations such as Thames Reach. With almost 100 active volunteers in teams across London, they are highly valued in helping our work towards ending street homelessness, and are very much part of the Thames Reach community. Kelly McLoughlin, volunteer programmes manager, speaks about her role coordinating around 100 volunteers, and shares how inspiring it is to work alongside such dedicated individuals and groups.

Describe your role as volunteer programmes manager. What is it about the role that you enjoy the most?

I’m responsible for organising all volunteer activity at Thames Reach, whether that is corporate efforts or individuals, and across all our different projects and services. Part of the role is also building and maintaining relationships with organisations who offer volunteering through their staff or students. Volunteers who are currently studying at university are really valuable to us and bring a lot of energy and commitment, so keeping those relationships are important. Anything that comes to Thames Reach in relation to volunteering would come through me.

My favourite part of the role is probably being able to share in the achievements of our volunteers; having the chance to celebrate them is important, and we have a few initiatives that mark and reward their good work. Volunteers are always humble, and often surprised when they are celebrated or rewarded; sometimes they don’t realise the profound impact they have on the people we work with.

Why do you believe Volunteers’ Week to be so important?

It’s a great opportunity to have time to dedicate to reflecting on the work that volunteers do every day. As an organisation and in individual teams, it gives us the chance to share stories and successes that have come from volunteering. This year, we have created and scheduled additional opportunities for volunteers, to make sure they are able to get more out of their experience. These training sessions will be based around new themes that we are coming across in our work, such as social isolation post-Covid. We’re also planning a summer event for volunteers to come together and celebrate their hard work.

How has the landscape of volunteering changed in recent times?

We have a large and committed pool of volunteers, but since the pandemic we have had to re-assess whether certain roles can be done remotely, as quite a few people left London during this time, and while some had to isolate. We lost a volume of volunteers altogether after Brexit, as some left the country for good. However the pandemic brought about a lot of people wanting to give back to their community, and we had a great response from people continuing volunteering with us once they had gone back to work, so again we needed to be creative with the sorts of roles people could do, such as outside normal working hours or in corporate groups.

What are the different volunteering roles that people can get involved with?

They can be split into three groups depending on the interests and availability of the individual volunteer: front-line, which would be accompanying staff on outreach visits during the day or at night, or front of house and reception roles; employment, which might be skill-sharing and mentoring, or helping out with our Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) service in our Employment and Skills team; and wellbeing, which usually involves activities such as art workshops and helping combat social isolation. There are so many ways to volunteer with us, and our shared commitment means that there are so many ways that we can work together to help people affected by street homelessness.

If you are interested in volunteering at Thames Reach and working with us towards our vision of ending street homelessness, please email volunteermanagers@thamesreach.org.uk

The journey from volunteering to employment at Thames Reach

Alex, assistant support worker in one of our homelessness recovery teams, discusses her career progression from volunteering to employment

The journey from volunteering to employment at Thames Reach

Alex is an assistant support worker with the PLACE (Pan-London Accommodation and Community Engagement) team, a service initially set up to help people find sustainable accommodation after receiving support through the government’s Everyone In initiative back in 2020. Prior to this, she volunteered with STAR (Sustaining Tenancies, Accommodation and Resettlement), a homelessness prevention partnership service within Thames Reach. She discusses the journey from volunteering to employment, and how the experience has helped shape her career.

What was your volunteering experience like, and what tasks did you do?

I started out volunteering with the STAR team from January 2021 until November that year. It’s important to do volunteering for a sustained amount of time so that people you are helping have that level of consistency. I was their Romanian-speaking volunteer, and went out on outreach shifts to locations that were known rough sleeping spots. I helped out with translation where we were looking for people with Romanian as their first language; this then evolved into shadowing support workers in the team. I helped with evaluating and following up on client progress, then helped putting together a database of services around London, so we could easily signpost for things such as immigration, legal advice, food banks and mental health.

What is your current role and how is the workload different from volunteering?

I am now assistant support worker with the PLACE team, and have been since November, so I applied for the role while still volunteering. The project was set up to find permanent accommodation from the temporary provisions offered during the Everyone In initiative. We work with housing associations to match tenants with flats, making sure people have the support and signposting they need, whether this is mental health or substance support, and we refer to Thames Reach’s Employment and Skills team regularly too. I have my own caseload and work with people from the start of their recovery journey, and also work as part of the Keeping in Touch service, making sure people are secure in their tenancy once they’ve been placed in accommodation.

What brought you to Thames Reach?

I had been interested in homelessness for a while, and wanted to know exactly how I could help. I wanted to be able to offer direct support for people experiencing homelessness, and really contribute to the good work being done. I also wanted to see the reality of homelessness, as in London you walk past a lot of people who are street homeless but never really get the full story.

What advice would you give to someone considering volunteering?

I gained a lot more than I was expecting from the experience, so I would say keep an open mind and really get involved. It really opened up different ideas and opportunities for me. The team were happy to share their knowledge and expertise with me, so don’t feel worried that you don’t know enough, because it’s definitely a learning experience. I was able to have an overview of all the things I could potentially do in the team, so felt that I was making a difference and getting a lot back.

If you are interested in volunteering with Thames Reach, check out our Volunteers page here or email volunteermanagers@thamesreach.org.uk