Volunteers with lived experience wanted in South Leeds

Hi,

My name is Michelle Wood, I work as the admin manager at Aire Court Community Unit in Middleton Leeds. My role is to ensure a good standard of admin support is provided to our clinical and medical team.

During my time here I have seen how the clinical and medical team’s involvement has made a difference to people who experience Mental Health difficulties; it’s great to see how people progress, recover and get on with their lives.

Part of people’s wellbeing and recovery can be having a purpose and activity in their lives. For some this is about working, education or training, for others it’s about getting involved in hobbies and interests, filling the day with things they enjoy doing. As part of this, we are looking at how we can involve volunteers at Aire Court.

At present we have a large reception area that has lots of potential. We would like to see this area being used creatively, a place to provide information, where people can find out about some of the things that might support their wellbeing and recovery in their local area – for example leaflets on gardening groups, coffee mornings, fishing, walking groups, art groups. It would be great to hear more about people’s experience of the care, support and treatment they receive at Aire Court, we could gather this in a number of ways and respond in the way we deliver the service. , We would also like to offer tea and coffee to people coming to the unit for their appointment. Overall, we want to promote a community feel to the reception.

We are looking for people to volunteer some of their time to develop the reception area. Ideally, you would be able to provide some time regularly and together, with other volunteers, you would develop the reception area.

Who are we looking for? It’s important that you have or have had some lived experience of mental health difficulty. If this is you and you want to get involved in volunteering, then contact me by email michelle.wood7@nhs.net to express your interest and we can have a discussion about it.

Many thanks