Volunteer Mentoring
For some time Care and Repair has offered mentoring places to those recovering from low risk mental health problems.
Mental Health problems are common; statistically one in four people nationally suffer from it in varying degrees of severity sometime in their lives. With the pressure of modern day life, such as the demands of running a business, meeting employer's deadlines, or family breakdowns can all lead to a stressful time and result in mental health issues such as depression or anxiety.
In partnership with the Bridge Centre in Wells, MC&R have developed a volunteering scheme which enables those recovering from these issues back into a working environment by giving one to one daily support and mentoring. The scheme is very flexible enabling clients to increase or decrease their hours depending upon their rate of recovery until such time as they feel confident to move into employment or onto another less supported scheme.
Regular meetings are held with the volunteer, their key worker, and Agency staff to look at ways in which the volunteer can be assisted to ensure they get the maximum benefit from the scheme. This may be by working alongside the handy persons or the gardener and with the advent of the stair lift recycling project, (reported elsewhere within this report), it is hoped to offer greater opportunities both in technical fields and in administration, stores accounting and web development.
