News & Events

Prescriptive Volunteering

Volunteering is being recommended by GPs to their older patients in some areas of the New Forest. 

New Forest Volunteer Centre is taking part in a pilot project which aims to help improve the health and well-being of older people by getting them involved in volunteering.

The New Forest Volunteer Centre, run by Community First New Forest, is working on the ‘Volunteering in the Community’ pilot project with Hampshire County Council’s Older People’s Well-Being Team, two other Volunteer Centres (Romsey and Petersfield) and selected GP surgeries.

The project aims to provide a clear and simple pathway to enable GPs to offer volunteering as an option for older people. 

As Hazel Dyson, Community First New Forest’s Volunteer Centre Co-ordinator explains,

“GPs are often seeing older people, who besides their medical needs may well benefit from becoming more involved in their local community, making new friends, having a structure to their week and a sense of purpose”.

Research, recently published in The Guardian newspaper, found that being sociable is good for your health. 

The research shows that being lonely and isolated can be as bad for a person’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic, as harmful as not exercising and twice as bad for the health as being obese.

Hazel Dyson says that the report’s findings tie in with her experiences of working with volunteers,

“I have seen a lot of people given an enormous boost by getting involved in volunteering.  The power of the social element of volunteering shouldn’t be underestimated.  When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility to other people, it can help give direction and meaning to their lives”.  

Older people in the New Forest interested in finding out more about volunteering can either ask their GP surgery to make the initial contact with the Volunteer Centre or they can get in touch directly themselves.

Hazel Dyson, at the New Forest Volunteer Centre, can be contacted on 01425 482773 or vol.bureau@cfnf.org.uk

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