National Volunteers’ Week takes place from 1-7 June every year and is a celebration across the UK of all the contributions volunteers make to their community.

Glasgow City HSCP has a range of volunteers working across its services from Youth Heath, Health Improvement, Alcohol and Drugs, Residential Care and Mental Health. We would like to thank them for all their invaluable and diverse dedicated efforts in supporting the services we provide.

Fiona Moss, Head of Health Improvement and Equalities, Glasgow City HSCP said: “The current restrictions due to COVID-19 mean that many of our volunteers cannot help us in their usual manner but some are able to help us in different ways. We thank them for this and look forward to welcoming them back later in the year.”

Volunteering activity has made an important contribution to the mental health recovery of people using acute mental health services at Gartnavel Royal Hospital (GRH) since the 1800s. Today, it exists in the form of the  'Art in the Gart' creative volunteer programme, where opportunities to take part in activity in a natural and casual way arise from patients’ ideas, interests, skills and passions. This requires a diverse and skilled volunteer team that offers the chance for patients to be involved in what matters to them. Activities range from conversation to chess; hand care to painting; outdoor music and art to gardening and fundraising.

Fiona Sinclair, Voluntary Services Manager/Lead Art in the Gart, said: “Many flowers and plants are now in full bloom at the ‘Art in the Gart’s’ Growing Spaces project. These plants have been cared for by a dedicated team of mental health services volunteers over the last seven years; and enjoyed by all who have visited this green and gentle space recently, many for the first time.

“We say a heartfelt thank you to all the volunteers who have offered their time, good humour and empathy, past, present and future. We wish them well and we miss them at this time, but we will see them again soon.”

If you are interesting in learning more about getting involved in the creative volunteer programme, please contact Fiona.Sinclair6@ggc.scot.nhs.uk or phone on 0141 211 3681.

Other volunteering opportunities are available at http://www.volunteerglasgow.org/
or
https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/your-health/health-issues/covid-19-coronavirus/for-the-public-patients/recruitment-volunteering/volunteering/