Volunteer
Being With© Volunteer
Being With© volunteers serve as patient companions in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and homes. These volunteers simply sit with persons who are seriously, chronically, or terminally ill or injured, and offer a loving and inclusive presence.
Being With© volunteers are NOT professional counselors, grief consultants, licensed therapists, or spiritual advisors. They are ordinary people from every walk of life who want to spend a little bit of time, as their schedules allow, simply being present to people who suffer in hospitals, nursing facilities, hospices, and homes, in order to bring about hope, love, wantedness, belonging, friendship, and mutual gratitude.
The purpose of a Being With© volunteer is not to provide a service, to do patient assessment, or to assist other care personnel with their duties. Volunteers spend their time quietly, by the side of the suffering person, listening, smiling, singing, reading, laughing, watching television, listening to a ballgame, or even just being present while a person falls asleep. When appropriate, they sometimes hold a patient's hand, or caress someone's arm or forehead. Sometimes they cry. Always they love.
If you are interested in becoming a Being With© volunteer, we encourage you to first visit the Being With section of our website and carefully read the Being With Pledge©.
It is important to understand how training and affiliation works for becoming a Being With© volunteer. Training is done by a member of our Compassio Institute faculty. However, volunteers are affiliated with the healthcare or ministry institution for which they are volunteering (such as a hospital, hospice, nursing home, or church). Volunteers are not formally affiliated with Healing the Culture or with the Compassio Institute. You must work through your local healthcare institution or ministry organization to bring us in to do training. If your local healthcare institution or ministry organization is not familiar with the Being With volunteer program, you will probably need to arrange a visit with the volunteer coordinator to discuss the program. At the request of the healthcare or ministry institution, a member of our Compassio Institute faculty will provide the training. Once trained, the volunteer is formally associated with the healthcare or ministry institution, and is not formally affiliated with Healing the Culture, the Compassio Institute, or Being With©.
We can also offer training through churches and other community-based organizations for reaching out to homebound patients, homes for troubled youth, homeless shelters, or even prisons.