Case studies
Michelle Smedley
Volunteering
It’s fair to say that volunteering has changed Michelle’s life. Michelle struggled through school and her early working life when she became a single parent. By the age of fifteen she had started smoking and using cannabis. She left Firth Park School at 16 with no qualifications, and says that she couldn’t wait to leave. “I didn’t do very well mainly because I played truant a lot.”
She went on a Youth Training Scheme and worked as a catering assistant, but left the job at the age of 21 after giving birth to her first child Chanelle in 1999. Soon after she met the partner who was to be the father of her second child, but the relationship was not a healthy one. He physically and mentally abused her. later he was sent to prison for his lifestyle. In 2001 she lost her baby son due to a cot death just before Christmas which caused a mental breakdowdue to depression. It was then that Michelle became dependent on cannabis, smoking up to £20 worth a day at her lowest point to attempt to take away the empty feeling. The loss of her son only worsened her relationship with her partner. Finally, in 2003, while she was pregnant with her son Tariq, Michelle chose to end the relationship.
So Michelle found herself a single parent with two children, unemployed and with few skills or qualifications. She started attending a bereavement group every week at Sure Start. Other than that, what did she do? “Nothing,” Michelle says. “I was sitting on the couch all day getting stoned.”
Tired of doing nothing, when Tariq was a year old, Michelle started doing courses in Maths, English and ICT. She achieved level 1 in Maths and English, and levels 1 and 2 in word processing and desktop publishing.
In 2008 she was introduced to Health Works by her friend Marisa, whose daughter was in the same class as Michelle’s daughter at school. Marisa encouraged Michelle to go on the Introduction to Community Development and Health course, which she ran along with Penny Stanley.
The course encouraged Michelle to get more involved as a volunteer and in March 2009, she became a Community Health Champion. She ran a weekly health walk every Wednesday, gym and swim every Monday and Friday and helped out Health Works clients as a buddy.
As well as helping others in the community, volunteering has had a profound positive effect on Michelle’s life. “I have had access to training and this has built up my confidence, made me calmer and me and my family healthier, fitter and happier. I have learned a lot about the community and a lot about myself in the process. I can do much more than I ever thought I could.”
Her experience also helped her to gain employment with Health Works through the Future Jobs Fund in January 2010. The FJF contract was temporary, finishing on 14th July, but since then Michelle has been employed on a two year contract as a Volunteer Co-ordinator Assistant, a post funded by the Department of Health through the Volunteer Fund. Michelle continued to come in as a volunteer before starting her new post. “I couldn’t leave my volunteers. I wanted to come in and support them.”
Michelle’s role is to support and develop both new and existing volunteers. She will recruit new volunteers from across Sheffield, including homeless people and young people aged 18-25. The scheme is also designed to develop the skills of current volunteers through mentoring. Five of Health Works’s Health Champions are set to become volunteer mentors, supporting and engaging new volunteers. The aim is to empower people through volunteering, giving them a clear progression route into employment.
Michelle aims to recruit ten new volunteers per year. “I’d like to get them involved as clients first,” she says, so that they can take part in activities and gain an understanding of what Health Works is all about. “That’s how I started.”
Her time with Health Works as a client, volunteer and employee means that Michelle has experienced the entire journey that she now hopes to support new volunteers to take.
She has now settled into her new job and already has a number of Health Champions in mind to become volunteer mentors, as well as links with homeless organisations which will enable her to recruit new volunteers. With the volunteer project expanding across the whole of Sheffield, Michelle would also like to set up new activities citywide, such as a gym club in Sheffield city centre and a new walking group.
Michelle has also set her own personal challenge: when she started her new job in October 2010, she also decided to stop smoking.
“The best thing I ever did was getting involved in this project,” she says, “Health Works has changed me as a person.”
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