We have volunteer roles right across the UK. They range from hosting an event in your home once or twice a year to making weekly or fortnightly calls to lonely and isolated older people. Take a look at the different roles below and see what you think might suit you best.
Become a Call Companion
Become a Call Companion volunteer and help reduce loneliness for an older person. All it takes is a friendly weekly chat – no special skills needed.
Become a rainbow call companion volunteer
Apply to join our award-winning rainbow call companion service as a volunteer and help reduce loneliness and isolation among older LGBT+ people.
Become a tea party volunteer
Apply to join us as a tea party volunteer and help reduce loneliness and isolation among older people.
Become a volunteer for our social activity groups
Our activity groups bring together people aged 75 and over in local communities to help reduce loneliness, isolation and improve physical wellbeing.
Become a Re-engage impact volunteer
Impact volunteers help us to evaluate our work so that we can understand the impact of our services. This can involve interviewing older people or asking them to complete questionnaires.
Become a Flicks and Friends volunteer – our monthly cinema club
Our Flicks and Friends cinema clubs provide welcome companionship to older people experiencing social isolation or loneliness.
Do you want to be a change maker in your community?
If you'd like to be a part of setting up a new tea party group, then we’d love to hear from you.
What’s it like to volunteer?
- You’ll be asked to fill in a volunteering application form on the Re-engage website – this will take you approximately five to 10 minutes to complete.
- You’ll watch a video induction or choose to attend a group induction to let you know a little more about the role.
- Then we’ll ask you to complete your character reference and ID checks – once completed, we’ll send you a link to the necessary training for your role.
- At the end of your training, you’ll be asked to sign your volunteer agreement. You can do this immediately after you have finished your training.
- Once you’ve completed your volunteer agreement, you’re ready to start volunteering!
We allow volunteers to pace their own on-boarding, some might only take a few days, for others you might like to take a little longer. We’re here to help if you have any questions along the way.
We all have different reasons for getting involved but a lot of our volunteers have or have had older people in their lives who have brought them joy or who have experienced loneliness. Other volunteers are feeling the twinge of loneliness themselves as they settle into a new area, a new job, a new set of circumstances.
Whatever your reasons, we are here to make sure that all our volunteers are fully equiped for their role.
Our different roles have varying time commitments. Being a call companion, for example, is flexible and created to fit around busy lifestyles. A volunteer call companion will call the same older person between two and four times a month at a mutually agreed time for an informal chat. Calls will last for around 30 minutes. A volunteer host in our tea party groups by contrast, hosts their local Re-engage group for an afternoon one to two times a year.
Our volunteer opportunities are open to everyone over the age of 18, the beauty of our community lies in the diverse make up of our groups – from young to older adults (and young retirees).