1.0 Tell us about your department
The department I am involved in lies within Volunteering Gold Coast (VGC), with that being the CVS program, or the Community Visitor Scheme. This particular department in VGC is responsible for matching a senior citizen of the community, who are isolated and/or lonely in either a Home Care Package or in a Residential Aged Care Facility, with an active volunteer to visit them.
The purpose of our volunteering department is to provide volunteers with an opportunity to meet recipients experiencing isolation and loneliness, allowing them to have an impactful and life changing companionship. Not only is this immensely beneficial for the aged care recipient, but the volunteer is equally given a great chance to improve many interpersonal and social skills that may not have been obtained within their lifetime.
It is an exceptional win/win situation for both the organisations and individual people involved.
2.0 3 words that describe your role
Listen: Listening is absolutely critical to engaging in the right ways with the CVS program, particularly with the individual person you have been matched with who is living in an aged care facility or in their own home. Specifically, the type of listening I am referring to is active listening where you not only receive what the other person is saying but you feel how they feel. You empathize with their emotions.
Value: Bringing value to the community one person at a time. By bringing value into my community or an individual’s life, can bring with it such an extreme and unique sense of fulfilment. Furthermore, by not expecting anything in return, you can deeply engage in another’s life who is experiencing social distancing from other people. As we are all aware, this is particularly prominent across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Companionship: Having a friend to talk about sport or what the latest social trend is these days, can make someone’s day, week or year. Although it may not be such a significant occurrence for you, being appreciated and involved in a social experience outside of anyone’s network is quite stimulating. This can ultimately result in an invigorating event, and of course, many more occurrences.
3.0 What is your why?
Firstly, I decided to volunteer for Volunteering Gold Coast because I felt an urge to want to give back to the community. I have been very fortunate and blessed to have been brought up within a family that has provided me with everything that I could have ever needed.
By coming to this realisation, and after only recently relocating to the Gold Coast from Brisbane, I had some additional time outside of my career and personal life that I could impart support into the area in which I live, specifically without the expectation of anything in return.
Secondly, I decided to volunteer within the Community Visitor Scheme because I felt significantly drawn to the initiatives that the Department of Health and the Coordinator of the Scheme (Catherine Howe) are and have been making come to fruition.
By being a part of an initiative of this nature, it would allow me to bring a great deal of value to an individual’s life, and potentially many lives who are socially restricted, unable to communicate with someone outside their network or family.
Therefore, having that sort of impact is unbelievably fulfilling for me personally.
4.0 Which of the VGC values resonates most with you (inclusive; collaborative; innovative; impactful; and fearless)?
The Volunteering Gold Coast value that resonates most with me is impactful.
Why did I choose the value impactful? Put simply, being impactful resonates deeply with me, because I want to do the best that I can every day, whether that be in my career, personal life or in the community. So, I want to know that I have done something good for someone. By my involvement in this scheme, it can allow me to positively impact the group or individuals I come into contact with.
Although I have only chosen one, a close second for me would have to be inclusive. This is because we have all at some stage (especially in the world’s current situation with COVID-19) experienced some sort of social isolation or loneliness. Some more or less than others. And hence, being included in the community is vital to a positive human existence.
5.0 What does social impact mean to you?
Social impact means to me, the specific outcomes produced from how we as a community act, within organisations, companies, businesses or as individual people. By our decisions and consequently our actions, we have the ability to influence the outside world. If through our initiatives and programs we decide to create positivity and upbeat collaborations, this in turn implements positive social impact.
In plain terms, I see this as, if we want to do something good for the greater group, then we have the responsibility and we are able to decide to make a positive social impact on such groups of people. If we want to make a difference, we can indeed inject positive inputs to produce positive outcomes for all, including ourselves.
6.0 How do you measure or perceive social impact in your role?
As Community Visitors, the social impact of our roles can be easily measured or perceived by the sheer look and delightfulness shown on the recipient’s face and through their mood. A step further than this can be the feedback, both verbal and nonverbal, from the family and friends of the recipient. Finally, it can be understood that the social impact that my role is having within the community is through the responses, comments and reports received from VGC and the facility who hosts the CVS engagement, along with any input from the greater community.
Further Information
Links to get involved and find out more information can be found below: https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives…
https://volunteeringgc.org.au/
https://volunteeringgc.org.au/communi…
