Hi I’m Alan
I live with my wife and daughter. My eldest son has profound special needs and since his 18th birthday lives in a small residential setting. My hobbies (apart from chasing around after two children) are DIY, gardening, walking, cycling and travel.
I’ve been volunteering for about nine months. I have always wanted to do volunteer work preferably working with young people with additional needs, as I know from personal experience how difficult it is to find support. I wanted to use my experience to hopefully support them, and in some small way add something to their lives. However, my job meant I worked long hours and travelled, so any free time I did have was spent with my family. I retired two years ago, and I saw the Independent Visitor volunteer job description and jumped at the opportunity and have enjoyed every moment.
I have supported young people by giving them the opportunity to make their own choices of activities, which has helped them improve their confidence and decision making. Also, by providing positive encouragement and feedback, and ensuring the visits were their time and they felt it was all about them. I believe having a visitor who is independent of all services, and who is solely focussed on the young person makes a huge positive difference to them.
I see the look of happiness when I arrive, as the young person knows the next few hours will be "their" time, and I have seen them grow. The young people’s happiness is infectious! Knowing that in some small way I have supported, encouraged and (hopefully) enriched the young person’s world, gives me a feeling of happiness and achievement. The feeling of giving something back is wonderful.
Sometimes the simplest things mean the most and two such occasions come to mind:
One of my young people wanted to go cycling, but their bike had a flat tyre. Teaching a young person a life skill of how to fix a cycle puncture, so that we could then go cycling in the park, and seeing the look of pride and achievement on their face was priceless.
One of the young people I support has very limited verbal communication and to hear them say my name and hold my hand and lead me to the next activity they wanted to do, just meant the world to me.