Voluntary Driving Service
Voluntary Driving Service
This service is funded by The South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust and is provided primarily for their Family & Childcare and Mental Health Departments operating within North Down & Ards. The service also helps elderly residents with local medical appointments and occasionally to appointments in the greater Belfast area.
The service is provided by a team of volunteer drivers, all of whom use their own vehicles. All drivers are reimbursed monthly out of pocket expenses for their journeys – 37p per mile.
Typical Family & Childcare runs may involve bringing children to/from school, counselling appointments, speech therapy and contact visits.
Mental Health runs involve bringing patients to/from the Mental Health Day Hospital.
· Do you have some spare time during the week – weekdays or weekends?
· Do you enjoy driving and meeting people?
· Are you a good listener?
· Do you need to gain some experience in Health & Social Care Issues?
If you have access to a car and have answered yes to any of these you should consider joining our team! All drivers are required to give two references and undergo a police check before beginning to drive with us. Adequate insurance cover is required and drivers must be in sufficient health to be able to safely transport clients.
We really need more drivers to increase our assistance in the community. The more volunteers we have, the more people we can help!
For further information on how to become a Volunteer Driver please contact us
North Down & Ards Volunteer Centre
91 High Street, Bangor, BT20 5BD
Tel: 02891270486 Email: ruth@vsb.org.uk
Volunteer Profile: Philip Campbell
Volunteer Driver selected for North Down Civic Endeavour Award!
Philip Campbell has been volunteering in North Down & Ards for over 20 years now. In the early days, while he was still working full time in the Bank, he started his volunteering by assisting organisations such as Mencap and the Simon Community. He first got involved having been asked for help. Around 1990 he took early retirement from the Bank, began volunteering full time and started driving with the then ‘North Down Volunteer Bureau’. Philip has continued to do so for the last 18 years.
Throughout this time he has helped a huge number of people, young and old with varying needs. His help has been in the form of transport to vital health and social care appointments. The types of runs he has been doing include :
· taking children (living with foster parents or in residential accommodation) to visit their birth parents, brothers and sisters
· to counselling appointments
· to and from school/playgroup
· taking adults with mental health problems to therapy sessions
· taking elderly clients to medical appointments
Philip is always eager to help where possible. He juggles this volunteering role around other volunteering activities he does such as helping out with the Croft Community, assisting young people with Maths and English, befriending people with learning disabilities – the list is endless.
Philip looks on volunteering as a privilege ‘as he is trusted to care for people young and old with a variation of disabilities and problems and take them safely and securely to all sorts of places’. He is pleased and proud to have a reason for being able to do something for people outside his family circle.
Philip is highly committed to volunteering and drives for the Volunteer Centre almost everyday. He even transports children over holiday periods and on Christmas Day so that they can spend quality time with their family.
Having been nominated by the Volunteer Centre for the North Down Civic Endeavour Awards, we are delighted Philip was chosen by the Judging Panel to receive the Award for ‘Voluntary / and Community Work’. Philip, along with guests attended a Civic Dinner on 7th April in the Town Hall, Bangor. Mayor of North Down, Councillor Stephen Farry thanked Philip for his commitment to volunteering and presented him with the award.
