We caught up with our good friend the amazing Lisa Birdsall, who is now Volunteer Manager at People First to find out about her new job role and what volunteering means to her. The Healthwatch Cumberland team first met Lisa as part of plans for the Baton of Hope event, in which we were a partnering organisation. We then went on to work with Lisa at an ADHD advice event, where Lisa opened up about lived experience of neurodiversity.
We found out more about how Lisa came to love volunteering:
“When it came to the Baton of Hope, it was really important to me to identify local businesses and enterprises that were really stalwarts in the community and that had deep connections in the neighbourhood and were doing amazing life changing work. When it came to meeting Sally and meeting Chloe from Healthwatch Cumberland, I just knew that their hearts were in it. They were on that journey with me. Without Healthwatch Cumberland, People First and Cumbria Health, there’s so much we couldn’t have done. It was a true reflection of what People First are too within the communities.”
“I have volunteered for the last 6 and a half years and have been profoundly shaped by loss and mental health conditions and neurodiversity I didn’t know I had. I always wanted to give back to the third sector organisations as they gave me a lot of support. I took on the Baton of Hope, and we had around 50 amazing volunteers. Most had full time jobs themselves and were there for the cause. For me, when the role came up for Volunteer Manager at People First, it was the perfect combination of me earning a living and doing a job where I’m interested in what I’m doing and believe its making a difference. This is my professional love language and my values. My values line up absolutely perfectly with PF values. To be the support for volunteers like what I was given when I was volunteering is really important to me.”
Lisa has already brought lots of drive and passion to People First, and we wanted to find out more about her plans for her new role:
“In my new role, for me I’m looking forward to building a really strongly tight knit community of volunteers. I’m starting with Cumberland Carers, and I see how vitally important this service is. Their ‘sit in’ service for families is a game changer and the coffee hubs has such an effect – you can see a sereness amongst the carers. Connection is everything. Going forwards and looking at services across the board it will be important to look at what ideas are needed. What do communities need and what’s not there? Getting the communities involved in designing the services is something I’m looking forward to.”
We asked Lisa about the benefits of volunteering:
“Volunteering is important because of what volunteers get out of giving back to the community and using their passions to have real value to society, especially those who are most vulnerable. Volunteering is a really good segway into stepping into employment and further opportunities. If you’ve got lived experience in a particular field, e.g neurodiversity, having that experience as a volunteer, building skills, its two-fold. Its professionally important but also personally important and values driven.”
“People First is growing and has a great reputation within Cumbria, the North East and Lancashire, with a real commitment to the communities we deliver work in. Volunteers make up huge part of what we do, we couldn’t do what we do without their expertise and support. It’s such a great community, there are so many areas you can go into; there’s progression and a desire from the senior leadership to really invest in all of the people in People First, not just those who are paid staff.”
Interested in volunteering?
We’d love to have you as part of our team. To find out more about volunteering roles within Healthwatch Cumberland, visit our volunteering page.
Stalwart: a strong and determined force