FAQs
What is a Wellbeing Circle?
A Wellbeing Circle works by bringing a group of people together to help you in areas of your day to day life where you might benefit from some support. One of the key benefits of a Wellbeing Circle is the central part it enables you to play in designing and reshaping the support you want to access and how that might look in practise. The Wellbeing Circle has you at the centre and in control of the support you receive.
How can a Wellbeing Circle Support me?
Wellbeing Circles Objective is you and our support to help you towards a happier, healthier life and open up access, continue connections and to stay engaged within your community. You will be visited by a lead co-ordinator who will establish what is important in your life, explore who you wish to bring into your circle and what support you hope for to achieve these ambitions, whilst giving you continuous support and encouragement to start using helpful services.
Wellbeing Circles places you at the centre and in control of the support you receive. You play a key role from the onset, from designing and reshaping the support you want to access, to how that might look in practise. You may already have a support system in place, and so may be thinking that this programme is not for you. The programme can work with support already in place to redesign that around the concept of Wellbeing Circles: that is, support tailored to your needs and want.
Who can be referred and what type of support can they access?
A Wellbeing Circle works by bringing a network of people together to help an individual with low to medium level of needs in areas of their day-to-day life where they need support through to hospital to home discharges. A key benefit of a wellbeing circle is that, it is designed around an individual whilst enabling them to play an integral part in designing the type of support they want access to. Individuals can choose who they wish to bring into their Wellbeing Circle for example volunteers from the Magpies service, local community groups, neighbours, friends or even relatives. The Wellbeing Circle will encourage a culture of collaboration to help share tasks with the help from a facilitator who will remain responsible for keeping everyone on track.
There is no prescriptive list of tasks that individuals can get help or support with as the Wellbeing Circle gives individuals the opportunity to tell the circle what they can best do to help.
Over the age of 18, those who are going to be independent again socially. Support will be introductions/attending with local groups/clubs that hold interest to the person very much led by the person and “What matters to you?”
How can I refer someone?
Referrals are currently send into be-pct.socialprescribing@nhs.net by a member of adult social care team or the integrated care team, where they will be triaged for suitability
Is there any cost involved?
There is no cost involved to be part of a Wellbeing Circle albeit with the exception of accessing community led groups which have a small cost to be able to attend, quite often this also includes transport to and from the event.
What areas do we cover?
We cover the whole of the RBWM which includes Maidenhead, Windsor and Ascot inclusively.
What is the role of a Wellbeing Volunteer?
The role of a Wellbeing Volunteer is to support an individual to become more independent and to live longer within their own home and reduce the potential threat of being readmitted into hospital. Quite often with the referrals that come through it is simply a matter of offering that extra support to empower that individual to overcome anxiety and worries about re-connecting with their community by offering support and encouragement to stop isolation and loneliness. This could be simply attending a local community event with them initially until they feel confident to access independently, going for gentle walks which in turn offers them companionship, exercise which increases their mobility or on some occasions going with them to shop for food until they are ready to do this themselves. It is not necessarily about doing things for them it more about doing things WITH them.
How can I get involved and become a Wellbeing Volunteer?
If you wish to discuss this role in more detail then please get in touch with Raisie Frankum on raisie@maidenheadunitedfc-community.org for more details.
Do I need to be DBS checked/ Have a DBS certificate to become a Wellbeing Volunteer?
Yes you do. It is vitally important that all our Wellbeing volunteers undertake a full DBS certification before being able to work with residents within our community. This is something we are able to arrange and all costs will be covered.
Is there any mandatory training that I need to undertake in order to become a Wellbeing Volunteer?
Yes – you will need to undertake a 2 hour program which can be done in the comfort of your own home and links will be sent to you to complete. We also ask that our volunteers attend a on-line training program called Stop-Look-Care.
How can a Wellbeing Circle support me?
Wellbeing Circles places you at the centre and in control of the support you receive. You play a key role from the onset, from designing and reshaping the support you want to access, to how that might look in practise. You may already have a support system in place, and so may be thinking that this programme is not for you. The programme can work with support already in place to redesign that around the concept of Wellbeing Circles: that is, support tailored to your needs and want.
If you’re a community organisation, how can you get involved?
We would love to hear from you to dicuss in more detail of how you can get more involved to enable us to work together - please contact Raisie Frankum at Raisie@maidenheadunitedfc-community.org for more information.