Volunteering is the bedrock of Colostomy UK. Without our volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to deliver our services to the many ostomates across the UK who reach out to us for support and advice. We’re not alone, however. Many charities rely heavily on the goodwill of volunteers to achieve their aims. But where did the idea of giving free time to help others in need originate from?
A long and rich history
As early as the twelfth century, people across Britain were giving their time to help sick and disadvantaged people within their communities, largely provided through hundreds of hospitals that were established across the country during this period. This care was often organised through monasteries, which is unsurprising, given that charity has long been a core tenet of Christianity.
However, it wasn’t until the early 1600s that the word ‘volunteer’ first came into use, deriving from the Middle-French term ‘voluntaire’, which originally denoted someone offering themselves willingly for military service.
Charitable work increased widely during the Victorian era, mainly because of the dire conditions that the poor found themselves living in since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Many people moved from villages, which had a sense of community, to polluted, crime-ridden cities in search of work. The ‘philanthropy’ that the poor received was often overseen by middle- and upper-class women. Some of these women became famous, such as Florence Nightingale, who worked in impoverished slums and cared for injured soldiers during the Crimean War.
While the concept of ‘volunteering’ remained associated with wartime over the centuries, it had shifted by the onset of the First World War, where the phrase had come to signify people within charities offering care to the war wounded, rather than those fighting on the frontlines.
Following the end of the Second World War, there was an urgent need to rebuild countries from the ground up, as well as provide for the veterans and deal with huge inequalities. Volunteering naturally leant itself to these causes and soon evolved into the invaluable service it is today, contributing an estimated £18.7 billion to the UK’s economy every year!
Volunteering at Colostomy UK
Colostomy UK itself only came into existence because of the determined efforts of a handful of individuals who all gave their free time to build a supportive network for ostomates. It all began back in 1963, when a doctor specialising in stoma procedures recognised the importance that emotional support had in aiding patient recovery. He enlisted the help of ostomate Gertrude Swithenbank, who soon began making regular visits to hospital stoma wards to reassure new ostomates that life after surgery could be just as active and rewarding, or in fact much more so. Even though the charity was yet to be created, you could easily make the case that Gertrude’s acts of goodwill earned her the accolade of Colostomy UK’s original volunteer.
It wasn’t long before Gertrude realised the scale of need amongst new ostomates for the kind of support she had been providing, and so called upon retired nurse, Frances Goodhall, in 1966 for help. Frances was soon giving her own spare time to the cause, but rather than offering direct support to patients, she set about securing funding which would ultimately lead to the establishment of Colostomy UK’s precursor, the Colostomy Welfare Groupe (CWG). Even at this early stage, the charity had many diverse volunteer roles on offer. By the 1980s, the CWG had teams of ostomate volunteers in place, all of whom offered other ostomates practical advice and emotional support around their stoma care.
Volunteering today
Fast forward to 2024, and volunteering is still the essential backbone of Colostomy UK. Our work would not be possible without the dedicated support of over 100 volunteers, all of whom give their time to help other ostomates across the country in a variety of ways. These include acting as consultants for our published literature, offering support through our befriending service, sitting on the editorial board for our quarterly magazine, Tidings, and acting as Trustees. And that’s all before mentioning the frequent campaigning, fundraising and advocacy opportunities the organisation has throughout the year!
Aside from all this, there are two services that we offer that are in particularly great demand. These are our Helpline and our Facebook Support Page. As might be expected, where there is a high demand for services, there is also a high demand for volunteers. So, if you feel you might have what it takes to help other ostomates in need of advice and support, then read on!
Helpline volunteering
Our helpline is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This means we need a lot of volunteers to ensure that there is always someone on hand to take a call when needed.
It works by directing the helpline number to the volunteers’ personal phone number for the time that they are providing support, meaning that the shift can be done from the comfort of the volunteer’s own home.
Helpline volunteers provide direct and immediate support to callers, offering non-medical advice and signposting ostomates to further information and other relevant services. But more than anything, volunteers are on hand to provide reassurance and support, based on their own lived experience as someone living with a stoma. Our volunteers regularly tell us that helping put callers’ minds at ease is the most rewarding aspect of the role.
Facebook support group volunteering
Colostomy UK also runs a closed Facebook Group—‘closed’ meaning the group is only open to people living with a stoma, friends and family of ostomates, and stoma care professionals, rather than the wider public. Despite being closed, the group has almost 12 000 members, which together act as a vibrant online community, offering each other advice and support.
Volunteers who help out on the Facebook page check posts regularly (usually once an hour while on shift) and are encouraged to offer their own support based on their lived experience where they can. Volunteers also signpost to Colostomy UK resources and other helpful services where needed, as well as monitor content, ensuring that the community remains a safe space for everyone to share.
Volunteering on the Facebook page can be a fantastic way of discovering all sorts of new and interesting things through the wider stoma community, while also knowing that you’re helping to keep this valuable resource operating for the thousands of people who regularly use it for peer support. Just like with the helpline, volunteering on Colotomy UK’s Facebook page can be done from the comfort of your own home.
Events support
Occasionally, Colostomy UK is asked if they could send someone to represent the charity at an event. These could be support group meetings, a fundraising activity in the charity’s name, roadshows, trade shows or awareness events, as well as formal engagements with the media or businesses who are looking to become stoma-friendly.
Given their wealth of experience, we often share these opportunities with our helpline and Facebook volunteers, when they arise. So, while supporting on the helpline and monitoring Facebook can be done from anywhere in the country, we are particularly keen to hear from ostomates based in regions with relatively few volunteers, and who might then be able to represent the charity at local events from time-to-time. Those areas are Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Cumbria, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Wales, Aberdeenshire, the Scottish Borders, and West and North Yorkshire. That said, we’d love to hear from you no matter where you are based!
Colostomy UK’s support for volunteers
Given our volunteers are so integral to our work, we take their support very seriously. All undergo the UK government’s official background (DBS) checks, receive ongoing training, and are overseen by Colostomy UK’s dedicated volunteers manager—our very own Ria Robinson. Ria also oversees regular online volunteer meetings and social catch ups, which is a chance for volunteers to interact and learn from one and other.
How to apply
If you are interested, you can contact Ria for more information via volunteer@colostomyuk.org or call us on 0118 939 1537 to chat about it in more detail.