Volunteering – helping others
Volunteering
The Trust is working towards raising awareness and improving the standard of care currently provided to women who suffer from Ectopic Pregnancies. With limited resources available, we rely heavily on our team of volunteers who take on a variety of roles, either supporting other people or working with the Trust in other ways to help to achieve our aims. Could you offer some time to help us?
Perhaps you may feel that you want to do something but don’t want to have to talk about your own experiences. If you, or someone close to you has experienced an ectopic pregnancy you may not feel ready to get involved just yet. If your ectopic pregnancy was some time ago and you have moved on you may be ready to help others more directly by volunteering to staff our helpline or be trained as a counsellor. Whatever you can do to help, it will be most appreciated.
Helping Others
Our Support Volunteers, or Listening Helpers, are those who listen to and support people who have been affected by ectopic pregnancy. Our ability to respond to women who are suffering from ectopic pregnancy is
currently limited by the number of trained people we have available, so we are actively recruiting new volunteers.
1. Some volunteers are recruited to operate our helpline, or respond to messages left on the answer phone during busy times, or in times of staff absence.
2. Some volunteers act as hosts on our message forums, responding to posts and ensuring that the forums provide consistently safe and accurate advice and information.
3. Some volunteers are recruited as ‘buddies’, providing one to one volunteer support to an individual who has been affected by ectopic pregnancy. This may be telephone support or email support, depending on the needs of the service user.
4. All of our support volunteers are provided with on-going training to prepare them for the task of supporting newly bereaved people and their families.
Anyone interested in volunteering can begin the process by completing a Volunteer Interest Form. This needs to be completed and sent back by post to the address on the form. We require your signature on the document and so are unable to accept this form by electronic mail. Volunteers also must be willing to supply two character references before they can take on a role with the EPT. All volunteers and staff are required to undertake a period of training. We always have space for another willing volunteer. You can see our Volunteer Policy here. Our postal address is as follows:
The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust,
c/o 2nd Floor, Golden Jubilee Wing
King’s College Hospital
Denmark Hill
London
SE5 9RS
Once we have received your form we’ll be in touch to talk to you about what training involves and the kind of things you might like to do with us.
