A statement in response to the Black Lives Matter campaign
19/06/2020The Oxfordshire Voluntary and Community Sector Alliance
10/07/2020Volunteering at Restore: Alex’s Experience
‘Working at Restore offers a unique blend of comfort and challenge: you can be open about your diagnosis, knowing that others around you empathise from their own experience…’

I started volunteering at Restore a few months after arriving in Oxford. From the start, I found a warm welcome, exceptionally patient and understanding support when I needed it, and a good-humoured and easy-going atmosphere. At the risk of being called sexist – not one to be undertaken lightly nowadays – I noticed that, as in most charities, the majority of staff are female, which I think helps maintain a more caring atmosphere than tends to be the case in male-dominated environments. In saying this, I cast no aspersions on the sympathetic qualities of the male staff, with whom I find no fault.
Whether I was manning reception, doing data entry or – my favourite part of volunteering – writing bids for funding to grant-making trusts, colleagues were never too busy to give of their time with assistance, advice, or an encouraging word. It was also fascinating and very satisfying – if a little daunting – cataloguing the towers of boxes filled with forty years’ worth of the charity’s archives.
To summarise the benefits of volunteering, I would list: escaping isolation at home, maintaining and developing career skills, enhancing your CV, gaining confidence, feeling useful, and knowing you are serving a worthwhile cause which benefits others with similar conditions.
Finally, I would only add that, as someone with a mental health condition, working at Restore offers a unique blend of comfort and challenge: you can be open about your diagnosis, knowing that others around you empathise from their own experience. But regarding the element of challenge, nobody will challenge you in a way that causes damaging stress, as can happen in more conventional workplaces, but only in ways that can enhance your confidence, as you gradually get used to performing different tasks.




