Registered Charity 1158654
Research, Planning, Training programme and Partnerships.
Our purpose is to recruit, train and support volunteers in care homes. We believe there is a huge untapped potential for volunteers to enhance the lives of residents in care homes. Equally we believe that there are many people who would like to volunteer their services in this way.
Our objective is to improve the well-being, social interaction, health, and enjoyment of life of residents in care homes for older people and reduce their social isolation. Our project will also enable care homes to be more firmly connected to their local communities and give them the opportunity to showcase the care and compassion they give their residents. We hope it will also help in overcoming the sometimes negative public perception of care homes.
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In developing our plans for the project we had to ensure that our project was well-researched, needed, feasible and practical, acceptable to the stakeholders in the field, sustainable and capable of being rolled out on a wider scale.
Early work - research
This has included drawing from various studies – for example the paper ‘Together but Alone: Isolated Older People in Care’[1] and by The Alzheimer’s Society research[2] who found that over a six-hour period the average resident spent less than two minutes in conversation (or other forms of communication) with staff or other residents, outside of care tasks. The paper ‘Volunteers in Care Homes – An Underused Opportunity’[3] shows that the problem has been recognised but unaddressed for a long time. We looked at the King’s Fund research ‘Volunteering in Health and Social Care’[4] and had email and telephone conversations with its authors. This paper showed that although volunteering in hospitals and hospices is widespread and well-developed, in care homes volunteers were still an underused resource. Contrary to what one might expect, loneliness increases rather than decreases on entering residential care from the community[5].
We also gleaned evidence from abroad – for example from the United States where volunteering in care homes is common. We derived some of our ideas from these schemes, for instance from ‘Friends Across the Ages’ in Florida. We found evidence from Canada that, partly because of widespread volunteering schemes, local care homes are regarded and valued in the community just as much as their local schools and hospitals.
We have looked at successful initiatives to reduce social isolation of older people in their own homes – schemes such as Dementia Friends, dementia-friendly shops and local good-neighbours schemes. Whilst these schemes are needed because of the increasing demographic pressures on resources, their success unfortunately does not seem to be transferable to the culture of care homes.
We have also personally visited care homes to talk to managers, staff, activity coordinators and volunteer coordinators. We found anecdotal evidence that confirmed the barriers and challenges to deploying volunteers, outlined below, which we believe our plans will overcome.
Why volunteers are underused in care homes
This research helped us identify the main obstacles to volunteering in care homes:
· The difficulty in recruiting suitable volunteers
· Vetting and administration problems
· The burden of day to day management of the work of volunteers
· The lack of understanding and awareness by volunteers of the needs and difficulties of residents
· The extra burden placed on care staff by volunteers
· The potential for conflict between carers and volunteers
· The danger that volunteers may unwittingly try to carry out inappropriate functions
· The transitory and irregular support that volunteers sometimes give
· The lack of a tradition or culture of volunteering in care homes (unlike hospices, for example)
· The reluctance of the public to confront and engage with old age, infirmity and end of life.
We have designed our training and support programme specifically to target these difficulties.
We have sought advice widely in the drawing up of these plans, and consulted extensively on their content, structure, feasibility, achievability and acceptability.
In developing our training materials we have drawn on a wide range of sources including some from abroad. We have used some ideas from The National Association of Providers of Activities for older people. Some other sources have included, for example, the NVQ training programmes for carers, Activity Provision, Benchmarking Good Practice in Care Homes from the College of Occupational Therapists and Keys for Care from the Residents and Relatives Association. Our training programme has evolved from these initial sources, but has developed and been adapted to suit the needs of particular residents, care homes and the strengths and interests of our volunteers.
Our proposals have been widely and enthusiastically received at, for example, AgeUK, and SCIE.
Support for the older person at home
Throughout the UK there are some excellent volunteer initiatives to support older people in the community and in their own homes – for example, RVS and AgeUk befriending schemes, Dementia Friends and good neighbours schemes. An elderly person at home may be supported by a partner or visited by selfless family members.
Transition to residential care
When an older person enters residential or nursing care, this support ceases or reduces. The new resident in a care home may have suffered the loss of a partner; they will have lost their home and their possessions. They will almost certainly be suffering from physical or mental disabilities which make social interaction difficult. Relatives, knowing that they are now physically safe and medically cared for, will thankfully have to visit less frequently. The new resident may have been moved away from their home neighbourhood and so will lose contact with their friends. 40% of older people in care suffer from depression – double that of older people at home[6]. Research shows that loneliness increases rather than decreases on entering residential care[7]. Care Home Volunteers is working to bring enjoyment and purpose to living for these residents in this last chapter of their lives.
Our Trustee Board and personnel
Our eight trustees include a Commissioner for older people’s services in a Local Authority, a volunteer in care homes who has worked as an expert by experience in over 100 inspections for CQC, an owner/manager of an award-winning and CQC outstanding care home in Wiltshire, an ex-nurse, a retired headteacher and a corporate fundraising account manager in a hospice. We have recently also appointed a new trustee who has been Chief Exec at at a Hospice, a major Meningitis charity and ar=t Circles UK. Most of the Board have had relatives resident in care homes.
Our Project Manager, engaged on a part-time, self-employed basis, is an experienced social care professional who has worked as an inspector and manager with different regulatory bodies. She runs workshops and training for care home managers. She has high credibility in the social care field, and is well-known in Wiltshire.
For our expansion into the Chippenham area, we have recruited a part-time Social Care professional in the town, working under the direction of our project manager. We also have an admin person on an as-needed basis from a nursing agency, a media expert who looks after our website and printed media, and an experienced consultant who manages our press releases and social media accounts
Establishing support for our work
We have met with the principle umbrella groups for care homes – Professor Martin Green, Chief Executive of Care England (corporate and independent), and Sharon Blackburn, then Policy and Communications Director for the National Care Forum (charity and not-for-profit). They have been supportive of our ideas.
We have visited Lorna Demming at the Department of Health in Whitehall to talk about the project. We have discussed our plans with our MPs who have met Norman Lamb, (ex-Care Minister), who has written in supportive terms to us.
We have twice visited NCVO at their headquarters and shared our ideas, and also attended all their London ‘Learn and Share’ events for their Volunteering in Care Homes’ research project. Professor Julienne Meyer, co-director of My Home Life at City University, was helpful in developing our ideas and we have discussed our common objectives with Tom Owen, also co-director at MHL. We attended the MHL event ‘Working Together to Improve Community Engagement in Care Homes’ event in May 2015.
We have met twice with Lord Michael Bichard, Chair of the Social Care Institute of Excellence who has been very helpful and enthusiastic about our ideas, and met Lady Jan Royall in Westminster who mentioned us in the Lords Civil Society debate as an example of good volunteering practice.
We have attended consultation meetings with CQC to make the case for volunteers in the drawing up of their new inspection framework.
In terms of management of volunteers and rolling out of our project we have visited Samaritans at their HQ and consulted with Citizens Advice. We have visited the Volunteer Manager at our local hospice which has 900 volunteers, and whose contribution saves them over £1million per year.
Although not a campaigning group, we have made contributions to the Demos Commission on Residential Care 2014, led by Paul Burstow MP, ex-Care Minister, and also locally to the Wiltshire Dementia Strategy. One of our trustees served as an Expert by Experience with Commissioners on the LGA/NHS Confederation Commission on Dignity in Care 2012 led by Sir Keith Pearson. She also worked as an Expert by Experience with inspectors on CQC inspections of care homes.
We have also met with representatives of a number of care home groups and managers of care homes. Without exception they have been positive and enthusiastic about our proposals.
Our pilot study, Salisbury, 2015
Locally, for our pilot study in Salisbury, we formed partnerships with Wiltshire Council, who contributed financially towards the study, with matched funding from the Lottery Awards for All programme. We also had generous funding from The Tudor Trust to help us complete this work.
Our Salisbury pilot was carried out in partnership with the Orders of St John Care Trust, in whose care homes we operated (Wiltshire has devolved its LA care homes to OSJCT). Other important partners in this pilot were AgeUK Salisbury District, who have received our proposals very enthusiastically, and Develop, the Volunteer Centre for Wiltshire
Our pilot project in Salisbury is now concluded and has been professionally and independently evaluated (report available from Chair, Norman Edwards). Our work in Salisbury continues.
We have established links with the Wiltshire Care Partnership whose members have about 60% of care home places in Wiltshire. Our Project Manager ran a workshop on our behalf at their County-wide symposium in 2015 on the new CQC framework. This was attended by Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector at CQC, and chaired by Martin Green, CEO of Care England. Our project manager also ran workshops in the 2016 conference. This was attended by Sharon Allen of Skills for Care and Des Kelly, Centre for Policy on Ageing.
In terms of volunteer recruitment we have also taken advice from the local Samaritans branch and linked with other bodies such as Salisbury Churches Together . We hope to be able to use a similar structure of partnerships as we roll out eventually to a national presence.
Our Current Projects
Priorities for us now are to sustain and consolidate the Salisbury project and to extend our work elsewhere in Wiltshire (currently in Chippenham) and further afield to Swindon during 2017. We have to show our model is needed and transferable to other locations.
Current work in Chippenham:
In the autumn of 2016 we ran an intensive recruitment campaign in Chippenham as a new venture. We have been hugely impressed by the response of Chippenham people and now have a substantial group of new volunteers currently embarked on their training and induction. We know from our research that care homes can be difficult and lonely places for volunteers and, integral to our programme, is on-going support, further training and opportunities for volunteers to share experiences and successes and to increase their knowledge and expertise in working with older people. We want to continue to recruit new volunteers in Chippenham and extend our network of partner care homes in the town.
Care Home Volunteers integration into Chippenham
We have become well-known in Chippenham. We have distributed over 16,000 leaflets, had a stall in Borough Parade, had articles in local newspapers, have a local social media presence, have posters and banners throughout the town, run drop-in sessions for potential volunteers, been interviewed on local radio, been welcomed by and have joined the Chippenham Health and Social Care Group, met Michelle Donelan MP and taken part in the town’s ‘Big Get Together’. Our office base is now in Chippenham. We have engaged a Chippenham resident – a much respected social care professional, ex care home manager and inspector, to be our local link person and assistant to our project director and volunteer trainer.
We were funded for this new work in Chippenham by The Wiltshire Community Foundation, The Allen Lane Foundation, The Chippenham Borough Lands Charity and The Tudor Trust.
Planned work in Swindon during 2017
Swindon is five times bigger than either Salisbury or Chippenham and has huge potential for us to reach a large number of beneficiaries. We are currently well advanced in the planning stage of this venture.
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We believe we have demonstrated a clear need for our work, have credible, comprehensive and rigorous plans and have shown that the project will be welcome by all parties involved. As we grow, we hope that we will quickly improve the quality of life of the 400,000 older people nationally in care homes, and reduce the loneliness and social isolation that many of these residents face.
[1] Residents and Relatives Association 2011
[2] Alzheimer’s Society “Home from home: A report highlighting opportunities for improving
standards of dementia care in care homes”
[3] Residents and Relatives Association 2007
[4] King’s Fund 2013
[5] Aging Health, Vol. 8, No. 6, Pages 637-646
[6] Royal College of Psychiatry, Dr Amanda Thompsell 2017 “Integration of care and its impact on older people’s mental health”
Report to the Old Age Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
[7] Aging Health, Vol. 8, No. 6, Pages 637-646