Can volunteering help strengthen our communities and improve our mental well-being?

When I heard that the Mental Health Foundation had picked ‘relationships’ as the theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, I must admit that I felt inspired.

At Volunteering Matters, building strong, inter-connected communities where citizens support each other through life’s challenges is absolutely central to what we do.

Deflating

Before I travel to our offices in Hackney each morning, I switch on the radio and skim-read the headlines. Too often, I’m left feeling deflated. The mainstream media has a well-documented ‘negativity bias’, and I fear that too many stories about poverty, crime and social division leave us feeling powerless and scared, rather than hopeful and motivated.

When I arrive at the office, I start to hear a different type of story. I hear that 98% of the beneficiaries of ‘Sporting Chance‘,  our health and wellbeing programme for older men in Middlesbrough, have made new friends since joining the programme, and 42% now visit the doctor less frequently. I don’t doubt that there is a strong link between better social relationships and improved health: it’s a common theme running through so many of our volunteer programmes.

I’m very fortunate to hear many stories of this kind. Our Volunteers Supporting Families programme, which enables trained volunteers to provide intensive support and mentoring for single parents with children on child protection plans, has made an invaluable difference to the lives of many vulnerable families. In 2015, 65% of parents reported improvements in their emotional well-being as a direct result of their relationship with their volunteer mentor, and 53% managed to expand their social network.

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