Health and social care is one of the largest volunteering sectors in the UK. This includes organisations like the NHS and charities which improve the wellbeing of people of all ages. So what do helpers actually get involved with? The opportunities are more diverse than we imagined as our bloggers reveal.

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Tuesday Jan 20, 2009

The Story so Far

Good Evening!

First of all, thanks for the interest in my first blog.  Second of all, apologies it's taken this long to enter the second one!  Things haven't gone quite as expected...

I had my introduction with Eva before Christmas.  Barbara from Age Concern sat back and let me chat with Eva - although Eva did most of the talking :).  She was amazing - totally with it and I really liked her, even after such a short period of time.  We're both Capricorns, and, if you're interested in that kind of thing - I could see a lot of similarities between us. 

We arranged a fixed day and time when I would visit, and I left really looking forward to starting the regular visits.

And then... things didn't go as planned.

Eva caught a virus which would have delayed things by a couple of weeks; of course older people take that much longer to recover.  I called her every week, and we would have a brief chat and I arranged to ring her again.  The 3rd time I called, she told me something happened to her support network, and she would need to go into respite care over Christmas.  I contacted Barbara and she said that she'd pass on my number to the family and ask them to call me in the New Year.

I guess I've learnt that you can't predict or expect things to go smoothly because the elderly need more care and support, so there might be difficulties along the way.  It is a shame because I was so ready to start and I feel rather stalled now.  I haven't heard from the family yet, which is actually rather worrying.  I expect she's just having an extended stay, but I will contact Age Concern in a couple of weeks if I don't hear anything. 

Now, in the meantime, I could write about other things - but they wouldn't be anything to do with volunteering or Health and Social Care - and that's why you're reading this!  So, I'll say goodbye for now, and will update as soon as I can.

Jasmine x

Posted by Jasmine ( 9:30 PM )
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