Volunteer case study: Jamie, WCVYS
Jamie was referred to Warwickshire Children and Voluntary Youth Services (WCVYS) 18 months ago by The V Team at Warwickshire Association of youth clubs (WAYC).
Jamie had told V that he would like some voluntary work doing something based with computers or admin. He had said that he wanted a fairly quiet office environment - nowhere too busy and noisy.
“When Jamie first came to us he was living in supported housing in Stratford and had been out of work for a while,” says Helen Smith, Development Worker at WCVYS. “He was quite anxious about new situations and so to start with he just worked alongside one WCVYS worker, so he could get used to the environment. We gave Jamie jobs such as copy typing and databases and he quickly proved himself to be extremely fast and accurate on the computer.”
Over the last 18 months, Jamie has continued to go to WCVYS approximately one day a week, but the changes they have seen in him are remarkable.
“He is so much more confident now, he is happy to do work if there are two or three people in the office, plus others coming in and out and he is much chattier,” says Helen. “On top of that he now helps us out at our conferences at which he has had to meet lots of new people and has joined our Resources committee which plans our events and our grants panel.”
Jamie feels part of the team, has achieved his V50 certificate whilst he has been with WCVYS, as well as starting an NVQ in accounting and moving into independent accommodation.
“We are really pleased to have him on board and consider him to be a real asset to the organisation,” concludes Helen.