Voice of Experience Sought to Improve Local Services

Council seeks older residents to join special advisory group

Older people in Chiswick are being urged to join a special group of their peers, which helps Hounslow Council to improve its services for senior residents.

Whether it’s scrutinising new leaflets, testing services, or choosing contractors, members of Hounslow’s older people’s volunteer pool leave no stone unturned in their analysis and have a strong voice in how housing, health and community services are planned and delivered in this borough.

Now Hounslow Council is looking for more people to join its ranks, especially people from Chiswick who are under represented.

Older People Volunteers tackle several areas of work, including:

• Acting as a vetting group for publicity material ensuring that it’s accessible, appropriate and comprehensible for older people
• Participating in the Older People’s Panel to monitor the quality and access to community (social), health and community services for older people
• Participating in the interview and selection procedures for staff to be employed in older people’s services for Hounslow Council
• Undertaking “discovery” interviews with a range of older people who receive community services to find out what they think

To become an Older People’s Volunteer you must be a resident of the borough. No formal qualifications are needed for the role, although basic literacy skills are necessary to enable you to take part in training, and fulfil tasks.

The Council is expecting volunteers, once selected, to complete their initial training programme. Once this has been completed, volunteers are free to choose areas of work of interest to them. All volunteers have a choice of when and how much of their time they would like to offer but ideally setting aside a few hours a month is recommended.

The next training programme starts on Tuesday 13th March between 10.30am and 2.30pm, with subsequent sessions on Monday 19th March and Monday 26th March, during the same times.