Nicholas’ service update – June 2024
Welcome to your monthly update from the peer support team from Nicholas – we hope you enjoy June’s roundup!
Outreach Support Sessions
There’s a new service on the block! Huge thanks to peer support volunteer, Fiona, who inspired her local health centre in Bicester, Oxfordshire, to host an information stand once a month. The initiative will run for an initial six months.
The centre has been actively promoting the service to three associated health centres on social media, in order to publicise more widely.
Fiona reported back: “The service flyers are in every clinician’s room, and we have advertised to District Nurses and Outreach Nurses and all clinics.
“I’ve engaged with a number of members of staff. I will have the poster included in our parish magazines and posters around the village too. I think it was a good start, with such positive support from the health centre manager.”
The monthly drop-in near Glasgow is, however, temporarily suspended. The sessions were held in a pop-up location in a local shopping centre with our partner host Voluntary Action. The space has now been leased commercially. We are looking into alternatives and hope to restart after the summer! Many thanks to May, Charles and Margaret for making it such a success. We’ll be back!
Thanks to all the peer support volunteers involved in all our outreach sessions, in June. There were 13 peer support volunteers attending six sessions. In total, they delivered 26 hours of support, which represents over 44 hours of your time dedicated to supporting 66 people across the country.
Helpdesk
At the time of writing this, there are a few days to go before the end of the month, but already 15 enquiries have been started this month, engaging the experience of 10 different volunteer responders.
The number of enquiries has dropped again and we are hoping to address this in the coming months.
One measure we have taken this month is regarding LiveChat. We have taken the decision to pause our this feature on our website, for the foreseeable future, to focus on the Helpdesk webform and email as our first entry point for enquirers.
We know the value, extensive knowledge and expertise our peer support volunteers bring via their responses to our hundreds of Helpdesk enquiries each year. This shift will help us to offer this valuable service in the best possible way.
If you been signposting to our LiveChat feature, please use Helpdesk as the first point of contact for now. Enquirers can reach us via hearinglink.org/ask or by emailing helpdesk@hearinglink.org
Community Days
They’re back! As reported last month, there will be 30 community days this year – and your local partnership instructor needs you!
The confirmed dates and places (until September) are:
- 04/07/24 – Botley, Hampshire
- 11/07/24 – Exeter
- 12/07/24 – Manchester
- 17/07/24 – Edinburgh
- 02/08/24 – Cambridge
- 15/08/24 – Lichfield
- 23/08/24 – Chelmsford, Essex
- 01/09/24 – Darlington
- 11/09/24 – Guildford
- 18/09/24- Cupar, Fife
In addition, Advanced Bionics has requested a stand for their community champions volunteers at 11 of the dates in the year, such was their positive impression of the days they have attended!
For more information, or to take up one of these excellent opportunities, please contact Alison.
LinkUp support group
It was a welcome return for this flagship service after May’s postponement.
Sixteen participants, including six hearing partners, joined ouradvisors – May, Holly, and Claire – and peer support volunteers Martin, Denis, Julia and Emmanuelle.
More details and feedback to follow on the Teams LinkUp Support Groups channel, but initial feedback included one participant writing in to say:
“I just wanted to send my thanks to all the team at Hearing Dogs/Hearing Link for a wonderful weekend. It was lovely to meet Claire, May, Holly and all the volunteers and to share experiences with them and the other attendees, who were so supportive too over the weekend.
I was most impressed by how well it was organised, the facilities (hotel and at the Grange) and how helpful and kind everyone was and it’s really helped me with regards to my journey with hearing loss. It’s given me a lot to consider going forward with coping strategies etc.
I’m very grateful to all at Hearing Dogs/Hearing Link and I send my sincere thanks and good wishes to everyone.
Kindest regards
M “
A huge thank you to everyone involved!
Cheers!
And it was ’cheers’ from Julia and Emmanuelle who finally met in person after years of peer support volunteering together online!
Helpful Hours
New webinar dates have been added for this service, offering additional sessions until September. Please continue to share the links and social media posts about this helpful session to ensure it reaches as many people as possible. Big shout out to peer support volunteer Helen who is co-presenting for the first-time in June.
More updates on the development of our new Helpful Hours webinar coming soon!
