We need you!
We are looking for a skilled and friendly individual to join our team as a Namaste Dementia Care volunteer, to help deliver support to local people living with advance dementia, and their carers.
What is Namaste Care? Namaste care is a person-centred approach supporting people with advanced dementia to engage in meaningful activity to promote an improved quality of life. Namaste Care is delivered using a combination of multisensory techniques and personalised resources. These activities may include:
- offering gentle touch, e.g. through hand massage
- playing favourite music
- making/looking through a memory box
- reading favourite books / poems
- encouraging gentle movement
Namaste Dementia Care involves:
- Weekly visits by a volunteer for up to two hours in the community member’s home (with a carer present), in the Hospice, in a residential care home OR providing Namaste Dementia care in a group setting in the community (Dementia café)
- Personalised Namaste Care activities for the Community Member
- Support for carers and families to incorporate Namaste Care into their daily routine
- Emotional support to carers and families
What are the key tasks of this role?
- Visit your community member and their carer on a weekly basis (for up to 10 weeks)
- Plan and provide meaningful activities, including sensory based activities e.g playing familiar music, reading a poem, providing hand massage etc.,
- Maintain appropriate boundaries with community member and their family
- Support and empower the carer to continue Namaste Care
- Attend monthly volunteer ‘catch ups’ to share and reflect
- Complete session notes in a timely manner and send to supervisor after each Namaste care session.
- Attend all appropriate training to the role
What skills, experience or personal qualities will I need?
- Interest in Dementia care
- Clear and sensitive communication skills
- Ability to work independently
- Good interpersonal skills
- IT literacy – ability to confidently use, and take part in sessions via Zoom / Microsoft Teams etc.
- Patience, Empathy and a non-judgmental approach
- Reliable
The difference this role makes to St Clare Hospice…
By participating in this project you will:
- Raise awareness across our catchment area that St Clare Hospice wants to support people living with dementia, and their carers.
- Provide direct intervention to people living with dementia
- Support people living with dementia to live well
- Give people a better understanding of our work and what is available to them more widely at St Clare Hospice. They will therefore have better access to our services in future.
Your support will help us meet our strategic aims of:
- Reaching significantly more people who are facing death, dying and loss in our local communities.
- Supporting our communities to become more resilient, to support each other and to remain independent for as long as possible.
- Seeking partnerships with other organisations to deliver better care for our patients.
Underpinning our core Values
By volunteering with us, you’ll be part of a community that celebrates St Clare Hospice’s core values of compassion, integrity, respect, excellence and team work. Everyone who is a part of the St Clare team is expected to embody this approach to their work, ensuring that our Hospice can continue improving and meeting the needs of local people facing death, dying and loss.
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More information
For more information about this role, including: the benefits you can expect when joining our Hospice; the training and support you will be given in your role; and other details about volunteering with St Clare, please read the full Volunteer Role Description.
Please click here to read the Namaste Dementia Care Volunteer role description
Apply to volunteer in this role
Thank you for your interest! If you think you’d be a good match for this exciting volunteering role at St Clare, we’d love to hear from you.
Please fill in the form below and we will get back to you as soon as we can.