Scarborough Survivors looking for volunteers to become a 'positive buddy'

A charity in Scarborough is looking for volunteers to become a 'positive buddy'.

Scarborough Survivors helps people with mental health distress.

Andrea Woolcott, Chief Officer, said:

"The idea of these positive buddies, who'll also be trained in mental health first aid, suicide awareness and safeguarding, will be to go out in the community to clients and help them make positive changes in their life; whether that be increasing their mental wellbeing, assisting them to a hospital appointment or supermarket, but it's about empowerment rather than doing for the client.

"We were very aware that a number of people were reluctant to go to a building or even to try something new. So it was the case of us thinking well if we could go out to the clients and make a difference to them, then that's something we should be looking to do.

"We have found that people have sort of said 'oh well, I don't even know whether or not I'll be able to leave the house, I'm struggling, I don't want to do things'; so to have a positive buddy that can encourage them to make the positive changes to be able to live a more fulfilled life."

The charity is looking for funding to hire the volunteers.

Andrea added:

"We need to train the volunteers, we need to equip them with a mobile phone, they'll all be DBS checked and it will be a paid member of staff that is doing the co-ordination to make sure the service is safe and it's fit for purpose and a quality service.

"We're looking to recruit in the first instance about 15 positive buddies. It can be as little as two or three hours a week, we're not asking people to make a huge commitment.

"Just, if they have a few hours a week and if they feel they'd like to make that difference to somebody."

Anyone who is interested can get in touch with Scarborough Survivors on their website: https://scarboroughsurvivors.org.uk/