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Caring for someone with a disability or life limiting illness can be life changing and not everyone gets the support they need. That’s why St Joseph’s has developed a Carers Service to support family and friends caring for patients of the Hospice.

Are you looking for a rewarding volunteer experience, and to have the opportunity to befriend and support others in your local community? Then this role might be for you. Our Carers Service volunteers support relatives and friends of our patients by providing companionship and emotional support.

The service offers free respite for families in the community, where a volunteer will sit with the patient for a few hours providing companionship, while their carer has a break. While this service is still suspended due to the pandemic, we are looking at re-starting respite visits before the end of the year.

In the meantime our volunteers have been providing emotional support over the telephone for carers, helping to reduce isolation. There is the potential to provide this support face-to-face outdoors in the community over the summer.

We provide a comprehensive 3-day training course initially, but there is potential to enhance your skills with further 1 day bereavement training to help support our bereaved carers.

To volunteer for this role, you must be:

  • Aged 18+
  • Empathetic and compassionate, with excellent communication skills.
  • Complete an interview and relevant criminal record check.
  • Complete two days of training.
  • Be willing to commit to a maximum of up to 4 hours a week for at least 6 months.
  • Attend monthly group supervision for 1.5 hours.
  • While not essential for the role, we are particularly interested in hearing from people who have personally experienced caring for a loved one, and from those who can speak different languages.

The next Carers Service training is taking place on Thursday 9th September.

If you have any questions about this role or if you’re interested in hearing more, don’t hesitate to contact the Carers Service on 020 8525 6026 or email carers@stjh.org.uk.