For Volunteer’s Week, we’d like to celebrate Eleni, who started as a volunteer with our service and has now joined the team as a Stop Smoking Advisor!
Hi, I’m Eleni, I work as a Stop Smoking Advisor for the Newcastle Stop Smoking+ Service, helping my local community in stopping smoking. I previously volunteered with the team for about 6 months before an opportunity came up to join them permanently.
The reason I was interested in volunteering with the service was because I had taken several years out from work to look after my children, and I felt like I wanted to get back into helping people again. When I heard about the Newcastle Stop Smoking Service, it was immediately something I felt I would like to be involved in, because my background was as a counsellor in drug and alcohol services. I feel passionately about helping people to change unhealthy habits and addictions.
A memorable moment when I was volunteering was when I spoke to my first client about why they wanted to stop smoking and beginning the process with them. I was enjoying working in the team at Newcastle so much, that I thought it was the perfect time to apply for a paid role.
My role, as a paid employee, has evolved quite a bit as I am now working more face to face with service users in outreach clinics, which I love. I have been given great training opportunities to expand my skill set as well.
I received excellent training from the team on assessments and knowledge around smoking and Nicotine replacement therapy options which helped me massively when I started my paid role. Managing a bigger caseload and getting more up to date with my IT skills were a challenge at first, but I have been supported by other staff, and I feel like I am learning new skills all the time.
I hope that the people I have worked with have felt emotionally supported in their quitting journey. I hope I have helped them to identify their biggest triggers to smoking - and throughout each session helped them build resilience. I hope I have helped them build the strength to continue to be smokefree.
Being a volunteer built up my confidence to work as part of a team again and also to work with people face to face. For me it made a massive difference as I had to go through the interview process, which I needed, as I hadn’t had that experience for such a long time. I also felt really valued by the team which I hope that I have taken into my role – especially with other volunteers and staff in the service.
I would definitely encourage people to volunteer in the service if they would like to work in a lovely friendly environment, learn new skills and give back to people by helping them to change an unhealthy habit.
As a volunteer you can take time to adapt to the role and build confidence in what you are doing.