Help from Home

Introduction

We run a project called Help From Seniors where we try to encourage senior citizens to participate in microvolunteering activities. These actions are well suited to this generation of people as they can be conducted without even leaving their armchairs. This service is free, as we’re trying to change the world, not make money from it!

There are plenty of senior citizen environments around the globe, but we simply don’t have the resources to sniff them out and approach them to consider incorporating microvolunteering actions within a meaningful activities programme. We know there’s an interest in this project from senior citizens, as we’ve received a few enquiries about it. We need volunteers to expand our reach in this area.

What’s Involved

- extract information from various websites, either from the ones listed below or from your own search, that are dedicated to providing lists of elderly care environments

- contact these senior citizen environments and introduce them to the concept of microvolunteering, via pre-written emails

- encourage participation in our feedback survey on microvolunteering for senior citizens

- report back to us on any other feedback you receive, so that we can evolve this service

- maintain a database of who you’ve contacted

- vacancies will exist on a country by country basis. Check with us to see if your country is available

A Few More Details

Basically you’ll be acting by yourself under the auspices of the Help From Home brand, introducing microvolunteering to the senior citizen environment in the country you wish to represent. To a certain extent you’ll be creating this role from the ground up learning from experience and feedback. As far as we know, nobody else is doing this and so the potential to create impact and shape the future of a small corner of elderly care is enormous.

Although not a necessity by any means, this role is ideally suited to somebody who already has a background in the senior citizen environment and who wants to be a part of introducing something radical into this arena. We welcome any input from yourself as to how to improve the service.

Not all senior citizen environments are suitable, especially high dependancy homes where mental and physical capacities may prevent occupants from participating in microvolunteering actions. The ‘Help From Seniors’ project is aimed mainly at Residential care homes, community clubs for senior citizens or just elderly individuals wanting to put a bit back into society.

The Websites

We’ve listed a few websites below where details of elderly care environments can be extracted:

UK Care Home Index
Example of how to locate contact details:
- Scroll down to ’1st Choice Care Homes’
- Near the top of the page will be a phrase ‘Visit the Official Website of 1st Choice Care Homes’
- Click the link
- Locate the webpage on which this organisations’ homes are listed on. In this case, it’s their homepage and all the care homes featured have email addresses.

Care Homes Guide
Example of how to locate contact details:
- Scroll down to ‘Anchor’
- Locate their web address
- Visit Anchor’s website
- Locate the webpage on which this organisations’ homes are listed on. In this case, they don’t appear to list email addresses for individual homes. So their general ‘Contact Us’ webpage will suffice.

Other websites include, but definitely not limited to, are:

The Care Guide (Canada)
Guide to Nursing Homes (America)
Aged Care Guide (Australia)

We’re also interested in making organisations that are active in the senior citizen sector aware of microvolunteering, ie. organisations similar to Age Concern or Aged and Community Services Australia. They may be able to promote microvolunteering within the services they offer and there’s certainly no harm in contacting them.

You

- be self motivated
- ability to work under your own initiative
- more than a surface interest in microvolunteering
- be conversant with our ‘Help From Seniors’ project
- have passion and commitment to make impact within senior citizen’s lives
- have persistence and patience

Us

- we’re very small, but have been instrumental in putting microvolunteering on the map and we fully intend to continue our pioneering efforts
- we’re all passionate volunteers with full time jobs or educational studies outside of Help From Home
- we derive no income at all from what we do
- we’re endorsed by the UK Government on their official Number 10 website, for our efforts in promoting microvolunteering

Other Stuff

- unfortunately, no expenses or salary will be paid
- volunteer whenever you want to
- volunteer from your own home or wherever is convenient for you

I Want To Help

You do! Glad to hear it.  Get in touch using the form on the Contact Us page. Look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give us – it’s very much appreciated.