Make a difference helping local families from diagnosis through treatment
Our incredible team of volunteers help us make a real difference in patient-facing roles, directly impacting the lives of local families facing life-limiting illness. There are so many ways you could help our patients, their families, carers and all those around them, from diagnosis through treatment. For example, our team of Inpatient Unit volunteers help check our patients’ daily food requirements and ensure their visitors have everything they need while spending quality time together when it matters the most. Our volunteer drivers transport patients and those who care for them to and from our Inpatient Unit, Outpatient Day Centres and Compassionate Communities services, held locally across our Herts and Bucks catchment area. We also train new volunteers each month in counselling, befriending and offering emotional and practical support, to deliver our Compassionate Neighbours and Supporting Hands roles, as they support our popular Supportive Care and Community Hospice at Home services. If you have time to give and would like to join the Rennie Grove Peace volunteering team, we’d love to hear from you!
Volunteer today!
Whether you have specific experience you’d like to put to good use, or fancy learning some new skills, we’d love to hear from you.
Our Living Well service at Grove House in St Albans aims to improve the wellbeing and physical, mental and social health of our patients, their families, carers and those around them. Living Well volunteers support our clinicians in keyworker roles, helping patients and those around them to cope with a life-changing diagnosis. In this important role, you’ll help ensure patients get the maximum benefit from their time at Grove House, in a friendly and supportive atmosphere.
If you’re at home behind the wheel on the roads of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and surrounding areas, here’s a keyworker volunteer role for you. Volunteer day services drivers transport patients to and from Grove House in St Albans and Peace Hospice in Watford for treatment and appointments. If you enjoy driving and think you could help put patients at ease, this could be your perfect volunteer role.
Volunteers in this keyworker role provide support, companionship and respite care to hospice patients and their families. You’ll help reduce social isolation for our patients and their carers, both in their homes and on trips out. This patient-facing volunteer role across Bucks and Herts can involve practical and emotional support. You might be sharing an activity or accompanying a hospice at home patient to an appointment or on a walk. Alternatively, you might be collecting prescriptions to free up family members to spend quality time with loved ones. Or you could be helping with some light housework or gardening or taking the dog for a walk.
Can you use your complementary therapy skillset to help support our work in the community? Our patients benefit from massage, aromatherapy, reiki, reflexology, and other complementary therapies – delivered by our team of fully qualified volunteer therapists.
Compassionate Neighbours provide social and emotional support and companionship to people who are experiencing loneliness or social isolation as a result of living with a life-limiting illness or bereavement.
After training Compassionate Neighbours are matched with people based on location, interests and character, with the aim of creating genuine, mutually-beneficial friendships.
Volunteers in this role provide invaluable support to staff, patients and their families and carers in our 12-bed unit in Peace Hospice in Watford. They provide much needed assistance to the smooth running of the unit, providing practical support at patient mealtimes, collecting menu choices and delivering meals and welcoming visitors to the unit.
Volunteers with a background in care or as a carer, or experience in nursing or as a healthcare assistant provide support to our nurses and HCAs with personal care and assist with therapeutic treatments and activities.
Why our volunteers love working with patients and those around them
As well as helping to make a huge difference to the running of our patient services,our incredible volunteers say they find working at Rennie Grove Peace both rewarding and sociable. Here are just some of the other benefits they listed:
Making connections Helping people who are going through a difficult time gives enormous personal satisfaction, and there is great value in meeting people and making a connection at this time of life.
Having a real impact Making a difference to our patients’ lives, and helping those around then, when they need it the most.
Working for the community Helping families in the local community who need specialist hospice care means your time and energy is harnessed for a good cause.
t feels great to help patients in such a direct way. The day services at Grove House are so important to patients and their families, and it’s rewarding to volunteer in this keyworker role and help people who are in need."
Why volunteer with us?
We asked all our volunteers what they get from volunteering with Rennie Grove Peace. Here’s what they said…
- a sense of fun and fulfilment
- an opportunity to try something new
- a real sense of achievement
- meet new people
- share your skills and learn new ones
- improve your mental health and wellbeing
- gain work experience
- boost your confidence
- become more involved with your local community
- feel valued for your contribution
- help local families when they desperately need it
Hear from our volunteers
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Kathy and Anne’s Story
IPU volunteers, Kathy and Anne, developed a touching friendship when they crossed paths volunteering. They tell their story...
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Raj and Gizella’s Story
Raj has been a Compassionate Neighbour volunteer in Watford for Rennie Grove Peace since 2022, supporting Gizella.
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Sara’s story
Sara has been a longstanding volunteer with Rennie Grove Peace, joining as part of our Compassionate Neigbours scheme and more recently, volunteering with our Supporting Hands service...