Remote working or learning and virtual team meetings is something we have all become used to during lockdown, but the idea of remote healing practices might be a little more difficult to imagine.
However, for Reiki practitioner Laure Stephen that is exactly how she had to adapt the services she offered as a volunteer at the Marie Curie Hospice in Edinburgh.
She had just joined the complementary therapists at the hospice, which offers care and support for people living with any terminal illness, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Parkinson’s, dementia and cancer, in the weeks before the first national lockdown last year.
Read more: Covid memorial: How I Remember theme can reach out to help culture of recuperation
As well as giving treatments to the patients, Ms Stephen, 44, was keen to introduce Reiki to the hospice staff, doctors and nurses, so that they would also benefit from it and gain an understanding of how Reiki could help.
“Reiki wasn’t available at the hospice when I started, so Gail Holloway, Day Therapies Manager, welcomed the idea and helped put it forward by creating a leaflet to start advertising Reiki. The response was extremely positive with all 16 places allocated in March quickly were booked with requests for more sessions,” said Ms Stephen.
“I was touched to see how welcoming and supportive the staff were. For a few weeks, I was able to give treatments with a positive feedback, just before the lockdown measures were implemented, bringing all complementary therapy to a halt.”
Laure Stephen, Reiki practitioner has been volunteering at Marie Curie hospice in Edinburgh
The Day Therapies team kept working, trying to find new ways to virtually support patients and their families, organising calls, video coffee mornings and asked if she could help.
Ms Stephen is one of hundreds of volunteers whose remarkable efforts in the past few months are being highlighted as Volunteers' Week 2021 gets under way next week.
She added: “Distant healing or Enkaku treatment appeared as the obvious option to keep giving support in this difficult time. However, explaining how a Reiki treatment helps is one thing and explaining how a distant Reiki treatment works is another. Thankfully, the experience I had gained receiving and giving distant healing on a regular basis over the past two years really helped and gave me the confidence to offer the sessions."
Read more: Scotland's covid memorial campaign appoints artist to work on historic project
Ms Stephen said it was heart-warming to receive feedback and comments of the sensation patients feel during a treatment and the emotional or physical impact it has on them.
She added:“Knowing that some patients had more energy for the day, or that their mood had been so uplifted was wonderful. Family members telling me that their loved one’s eyes were lit up and more alive after a treatment and that after a few sessions they started to take a few, more confident steps when it was difficult before was amazing.”
Paul McCay has been volunteering at a befriending service
Alan Stevenson, Volunteer Scotland Chief Executive, said this was very much a time to thank all of the volunteers in the UK, for the support and services they provide each year.
He said: “The pandemic has changed volunteering with many more of us helping others within our local neighbourhood than ever before, so taking the time to thank them for this critical contribution and connection to the most vulnerable in our society is essential. In the last year, countless volunteering programmes have paused, we hope not closed, so this year it is especially important to also recognise those who have been unable to volunteer, or volunteer as regularly, or those who may be anxious about resuming."
Figures from an Ipsos Mori poll last June showed almost three quarters (74%) of adults in Scotland gave time to volunteer during Covid-19, this represented a 26% increase in volunteering ‘during COVID- 19’ compared to the 2018 participation rate of 48%.
It is the team of volunteers at a befriending service which offers support to help reduce isolation for those battling addiction who have been making a difference.
Homeless charity Rowan Alba is now appealing for more volunteers to support its befriending service which works with people across Edinburgh, providing vital support and social contact to reduce isolation.
The Community Alcohol Related Damages Service (CARDS) was set up by pioneering homeless charity Rowan Alba in 2010. Those who are referred to them by health care specialists, GPs, hospitals and mental health services have, became isolated and developed a problematic relationship with alcohol. CARDS volunteers are there to provide vital social contact and to listen without judgment.
A team of 60 volunteers deliver one to one befriending support to 80 clients across the city, usually meeting once a week to provide emotional support, helping clients build their social skills and confidence to engage with their local community.
Paul McCay, a CARDS volunteer for seven years said: “The people we work with are socially isolated, many have anxiety and are disconnected from their communities. Just having someone who consistently shows up, without judgment, to listen, have a chat, listen to music, go for a walk or a coffee can’t be underestimated. The regular contact that volunteers provide can be both life-changing and life-saving.”
Volunteer Ian Arthur has been making a difference with the Food Train charity
Volunteers on the ground have been in a good place to help people access services.
Ian Arthur, 44, from, Glasgow, has been a volunteer with Food Train for just over a year. He is one of 1,771 volunteers across the country supporting the work of Food Train, a charity which helps older people to live better lives in their own homes by ensuring they can eat well and by tackling loneliness.
Mr Arthur currently volunteers weekly with the shopping team in Glasgow, making grocery deliveries to those aged 65 and over across the city and says it is the difference it makes to people that inspires him.
Mr Arthur says it was when he started doing deliveries that it got really rewarding. He also helped one older man who had no phone or internet to get an appointment for his Covid vaccination.
He added: “He was stuck for contacting the helpline. So I volunteered to phone for him.
“A few weeks later when we went to deliver he was waving his blue envelope at the door. He was so happy.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here