{"id":6847,"date":"2018-05-10T16:13:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T06:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=6847"},"modified":"2018-05-10T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T06:18:41","slug":"new-hand-meets-a-wise-head-in-volunteer-heart-to-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/new-hand-meets-a-wise-head-in-volunteer-heart-to-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"New hand meets a wise head in volunteer heart-to-heart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Our longest serving volunteer Phyl and one of our newest volunteers, Sarah.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This month we\u2019re celebrating our team of more than 600 dedicated volunteers at the RCH.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We spoke to our longest serving volunteer Phyl, who has been volunteering for 39 years and introduced her to one of our newest volunteers, Sarah, who we welcomed as a volunteer in April.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phyl started volunteering after her daughter suggested she might like it and has volunteered in orthopaedics with play specialists, doing the library run and in the Family Hub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was Sarah\u2019s personal experience with a volunteer in the RCH Emergency Department (ED), that led to her applying to be a volunteer. She now volunteers in our ED on weekends, providing support to families, entertaining siblings, getting cups of tea and coffee and checking on patients and families while they wait to see a doctor.<\/p>\n

Despite the gap in their experience, Phyl and Sarah are both grateful for the opportunity to be a part of our diverse network of volunteers at the RCH.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think volunteering allows people of different generations to work together \u2013 a lot of organisations don\u2019t have that because older people would be retired in a paid job, so, this allows a spread of generations to interact regularly, and that\u2019s got to be a good thing,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n

Phyl agrees, and says she even goes on holidays with some of the friends she has met at the RCH.<\/p>\n

\u201cVolunteering is a way of meeting new people and gaining friendship, and the friendships I have formed in this hospital have been very rewarding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Both motivated by helping children, Phyl and Sarah are equally inspired by each other.<\/p>\n

Sarah says that after only one shift, volunteering had exceeded her expectations and meeting Phyl was further encouragement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means somebody has enjoyed volunteering for such a long period of time and felt of such value that they have committed to it without pay which drives so many people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

And Phyl is just as happy to be meeting new people and sharing her knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is just encouraging to see all of these young volunteers come into the hospital, they have just been a delight \u2013 they add to you and make you feel young,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to help children, then that is what it\u2019s all about, no matter your age or experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re hosting an information session during National Volunteers Week. If you would like to find out more information about our volunteer program before applying we encourage you to come along.<\/em><\/p>\n

When:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Tuesday May 22, 2018 at 11am<\/em><\/p>\n

Where:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Ella Latham Theatre, Ground Floor, The Royal Children’s Hospital<\/em><\/p>\n

Register your attendance by sending your name and contact details to volunteer.service@rch.org.au<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

To learn more on what it takes to be a volunteer at the RCH, click here.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our longest serving volunteer Phyl, who has been volunteering for 39 years met Sarah, who is one of our newest volunteers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":6857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6847"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6861,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6847\/revisions\/6861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}