As part of my social placement, I went to the Richmond Cheshire home in Monkstown village on Tuesday 11th September and I will continue to go every week on Tuesday morning until Christmas. It was a completely new experience for me because I had never done any volunteer work before and I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, I was doing it with one of my class mates, so I didn’t have to do it alone.
When we arrived at the home we met the manager, who gave us some background information on the home and outlined to us the things we would be doing over course of the next 16 weeks. Then we got shown around the home, it was a lot bigger then I’d expected. 24 people live there, aged between 25 and 70. Each person has their own bedroom, and there is a bathroom between each 5 individuals. There's also a kitchen, dining room and conservatory.
The people living there all have different disabilities, caused by sickness or injury, and are all in wheelchairs. All the staff take care of them very well and there is a warm, family feeling to the place. So for our first day, we just had to get to know some of the people and keep them company. We talked to them for most of the day and played some games with them. We also met two other volunteers from Denmark who worked there full-time and they helped us out a lot.
After a while, we got to take 2 people out for a walk down to the sea. I was quite wary first pushing the wheelchair because I thought I was going to do something wrong, but after a few minutes I got the hang of it and became more relaxed. It’s a lot harder to go places with a wheelchair then it seems. You can only leave and go onto the footpath at certain points where it dips, which aren’t very common, and the bad footpaths didn’t help either, due to bumps and potholes. We ended up having to take a really long route down to the sea which was a little annoying, but it was a nice day, and once we got there it was very nice sitting back and relaxing beside the sea.
When we got back, we had lunch with everyone in the home and then had to leave as we were due back at school in the early afternoon. I’m looking forward to continuing social placement at the Richmond Cheshire home next week, and I’m really hoping that my time there really makes a difference and helps everyone at the home.
Text: MS
When we arrived at the home we met the manager, who gave us some background information on the home and outlined to us the things we would be doing over course of the next 16 weeks. Then we got shown around the home, it was a lot bigger then I’d expected. 24 people live there, aged between 25 and 70. Each person has their own bedroom, and there is a bathroom between each 5 individuals. There's also a kitchen, dining room and conservatory.
The people living there all have different disabilities, caused by sickness or injury, and are all in wheelchairs. All the staff take care of them very well and there is a warm, family feeling to the place. So for our first day, we just had to get to know some of the people and keep them company. We talked to them for most of the day and played some games with them. We also met two other volunteers from Denmark who worked there full-time and they helped us out a lot.
After a while, we got to take 2 people out for a walk down to the sea. I was quite wary first pushing the wheelchair because I thought I was going to do something wrong, but after a few minutes I got the hang of it and became more relaxed. It’s a lot harder to go places with a wheelchair then it seems. You can only leave and go onto the footpath at certain points where it dips, which aren’t very common, and the bad footpaths didn’t help either, due to bumps and potholes. We ended up having to take a really long route down to the sea which was a little annoying, but it was a nice day, and once we got there it was very nice sitting back and relaxing beside the sea.
When we got back, we had lunch with everyone in the home and then had to leave as we were due back at school in the early afternoon. I’m looking forward to continuing social placement at the Richmond Cheshire home next week, and I’m really hoping that my time there really makes a difference and helps everyone at the home.
Text: MS