A life in the day
Volume 10 Issue 2 May 2006 © Pavilion
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efriending, buddying, mentoring and
escort projects in Croydon, Havering,
Islington, Lewisham and Waltham Forest
– these are just some of the approaches being
taken by Capital Volunteering in its London-
wide programme to support people with serious
mental health problems to take part in
volunteering activities.
One of the key principles on which the Capital
Volunteering programme is based is to facilitate
the development and design of local projects,
working with a wide range of stakeholders. As a
consequence, there is a huge variety and diversity
among the Capital Volunteering projects. They
include a samba band in Hillingdon, theatre and
dance projects in partnership with the
Almeida
and Sadlers Wells theatres in Islington, and
Volunteer Centre projects helping people to
volunteer in community organisations in
Southwark, Lewisham, Hillingdon, Havering and
Waltham Forest.
Other innovative projects include a
community music project for African and Afro-
Caribbean service users, ward-based projects in
Southwark and Hillingdon of
fering arts, health
and leisure activities, and Time Banks, where
people ‘exchange’ skills instead of money.
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The idea behind Capital
Volunteering is very
simple. People with mental health issues are
often isolated and have a narrow domain in
terms of the people they meet. In fact most are
other mental health service users. Volunteering
can build bridges with the wider community. So
Capital Volunteering is about giving people with
mental health issues the opportunity to volunteer
outside the mental health system. And at the
same time it’s about bringing volunteers in from
the community to work with mental health
service users.
The Capital Volunteering programme tackles
social exclusion and helps build new links and
ways of working between voluntary and
statutory sectors on a scale that could make a
tangible difference. The programme is backed by
£7.3 million from the Treasury’s Invest to Save
budget – a huge amount for volunteering and
social inclusion projects. That money will enable
as many as 200 projects to be launched across 11
boroughs, and it should have an impact on at
least 5000 people with severe mental health
problems. The evaluation of Capital
V
olunteering, which is being undertaken by the
Institute of Psychiatry, is looking at the social
and economic impacts of the programme,
tracking the ways in which volunteering has
helped 300 mental health service users to change
their lives.
There is also the real possibility that this will
produce savings in hospital and crisis services.
The hope is that, through volunteering and
befriending projects, people will expand their
social networks, increase their confidence and
Helping people reclaim
their lives
Can volunteering help people with mental health issues reclaim their lives? Claire
Helman describes the Capital Volunteering project, which aims to tackle social
exclusion by increasing volunteering opportunities across London.