Volunteer Support Services Programme

Things are looking up for palliative care volunteering.

It’s been a tough time through COVID with many volunteer services unable to operate or operating with reduced capacity. Now there is light at the end of the tunnel. Most services are back in operation and ready to accept referrals. Volunteer Managers are now facing the challenge of recruiting new volunteers to fill the gaps in capacity and dedicating time to onboarding and training.

Kate Bowman

“We saw a great outpouring of appreciation for volunteers from service teams back in May during National Volunteer Week. It’s always a busy time with National Volunteer Week falling the week before National Palliative Care Week. To help showcase volunteering we asked Volunteer Managers to select some volunteers willing to share their perspectives. Volunteer Managers and palliative care teams also jumped on board to let volunteers know how much they are valued by sending in some videos of appreciation for us to share via our VolunteerHub website. Watch the appreciation videos here.

Recently, we said goodbye to one of longest serving Volunteer Managers, Karen Rudge. Karen had been looking after volunteers around Taree for fifteen years. Such dedication! We wish her all the best.

With her departure we have a new a new Volunteer Manager to welcome to our network in Taree, as well as new managers in Grafton, Maitland, and Goulburn. The brand new Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice in Manly also includes a volunteer service.

Inclusivity, diversity, and culturally inclusive care are always ideals to strive for in service provision. With this in mind, we partnered with presenters from the Multicultural Communities Council of the Illawarra and Partners in Culturally Appropriate Care (PICAC) to provide volunteers, volunteer managers, and clinicians the opportunity for professional development. We hosted two education sessions on Culturally Inclusive Care. One in Warilla with the help of Volunteer Managers from the Illawarra and Shoalhaven Palliative Care Volunteer Services in March and another in June in Sydney.

In May we head out to the beautiful but cold Parkes in central western NSW for The Cost of Caring seminar. The day provided an opportunity to reflect on the important work volunteers and health professionals do, and explored the challenges that lead to compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma, and how to strengthen and grow.

Talking with your volunteers, making sure they feel heard, and otherwise reflecting on experiences is a huge part of the role of a manager of volunteers. In June, Volunteer Managers all over NSW were given the opportunity to join our online workshop covering Debriefing Essentials.

We have been planning hard for the 2023 Palliative Care Volunteer Conference and think we have a great lineup of presenters and topics on offer. This year the theme is The Power of Perspective and we are so excited to bring volunteers together for a conference for the first time since 2019. With so many recent recruits in services it will be a great opportunity for volunteers to meet their peers and share their experiences.

We are excited to have Teresa Plane, NSW Senior of the Year, as a plenary speaker. Other presentations and workshops will cover Voluntary Assisted Dying, supporting people with cognitive decline, and through grief and bereavement, self-care, and more. The conference will be held on 23rd and 24th October in Narrabeen and we hope you will come along and support your volunteer team to come. Registrations will open in July so stay tuned for more information. See you there!