Services update by Nicholas
A roundup of news from Services Delivery Manager, Nicholas, from the Peer Support Team.
Community Days
Community Days having their most popular month of the quarter with Darlington, Harpenden, Cupar and Droitwich all featuring. Community Day training is available now for volunteers interested in attending a Community Day from August to October – please see Michael’s update, or the Teams channel for details.
Many thanks to Helen, Claire, Charles, May, Margaret, Phil and Shona for engaging with the service and delivering alongside our fab Partnership Instructor colleagues in the Community Support Team!
LinkUp Groups
The June LinkUp support group will see a welcome return to our northern training centre – the Beatrice Wright Centre at Bielby, near York. It will be another fully booked weekend with 16 participants taking part – a huge step for many on their hearing loss journey.
A quarter of the attendees will be joined by a hearing partner – which is really positive news. Updates will be posted on the LinkUp support group Teams channel – so do look out for the posts.
Looking forward, our forthcoming LinkUp support groups are filling up fast with some fully booked as well. Our colleagues in the Central Support Team have an excellent on-boarding process that really suits the participants as part of the services pathway we now offer.
Community Outreach
Hearing Support Sessions
Our excellent drop-in sessions in London and Edinburgh continued in June. Huge thanks again to Alison, Mary, Elaine, Ann, Margaret, Catherine and Kirsty for leading on these.
This month’s Edinburgh session was busy, with 12 people benefiting from our peer support. This included a previous attendee of a LinkUp support group. Their previous contact with the volunteers really helped to build trust in the information and advice they were given. By using our safe and secure Hello2 app, the volunteers were able to refer the visitor directly to advisors in the Central Support Team for a follow up. Great teamwork!
June was also the last session of the summer in London before it returns in September. A well-earned break for Alison and hopefully we’ll have extra hands available on its return.
This month’s session included a layered enquiry from a young person with complex needs in addition to a profound hearing loss. The solution would not be a simple reply and it took a huge investment from the volunteer, and a few exchanges of emails to deliver some advice. It was really handled sensitively and professionally and could not have been done better. A really important example of the high value face-to-face services have, and using the support available within the team in central support.
Helpdesk
There were 27 cases closed in May on the Helpdesk, with 15 different volunteer responders replying to enquiries across 11 different topics. For a full break down of this recent activity, please visit the Helpdesk channel on the Volunteers’ Teams channel.
NB: If you are heading out on holiday, please let us know your availability for responding. Do let Alison know your dates so you are not inadvertently sent an enquiry while you are on the beach!
The number of cases closed on Helpdesk in May is similar to last month, so a pattern is beginning to appear. One reason for a seemingly lower number could be that we have introduced a more focussed way of recording cases. Previously, anyone contacting the Charity via Helpdesk, for whatever reason, was counted as a case.
This included enquiries that we could not help with, due to not being in the UK for example. This is no longer the case. Also, anyone writing to the Helpdesk to enquire about any of our services, including applying for a hearing dog are no longer counted as being helped by the Helpdesk. In this way, we can notice a fall in the number of cases closed, while we can be confident that now each case does represent one or more people being directly helped.
However, we have enough volunteer responders to manage more cases and have been increasing social media posts to advertise the Helpdesk. Please follow Hearing Link Services on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and don’t forget to ‘like’, ‘share’, and retweet regularly. The more activity we have, the likelier we will feature more prominently in the algorithms analysing traffic to these platforms.
We also have a new URL which takes beneficiaries straight to our online form at hearinglink.org/ask-us. Please share this with anyone who might need our support.
LiveChat is available on the website 9am-5pm during the working week. Currently, advisors in the Central Support Team are ready to respond immediately to an enquirer. Traffic to LiveChat has an unpredictable nature, meaning that on some days there are one or two enquiries, but have reached a peak of 10, with 6 also arriving at the same time! The chats do however lead to referrals to the Helpdesk and further peer support opportunities. So, while its use by enquirers cannot be predicted, it is a rich gateway to contact with peer support volunteers.
Teams channel
I hope you have been making the most of Hearing Link Services Volunteer Teams Channel! It’s been a source of information, praise, thanks, laughs and learning, with an average of a new post every couple of days. Here’s the trend over the last 30 days…
Are you looking for additional research or survey opportunities? Head to the General channel for the current opportunities.
The tone is upbeat and supportive, so if you’d like to leave a comment or a reaction in the spirit of the post please do! 👍👏😂🤔😎❤🥂😁
Helpful Hours
Thank you to everyone who came along to the most recent sessions of ‘Getting the most from your audiology appointment’ and also for taking the time to complete the feedback survey.
We will be looking at running a few more sessions over the next month, so do look out for invitations on here to that if you haven’t already been.
Huge thanks to Emmanuelle, Julia, John, Katrina, and Sylvia for all your work getting it this far! The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Here are some key responses.