Service Section: Marine Parade Family Service Centre(MPFSC)

Entry for Training cum Interaction session with other volunteers

Date:16th March 2007

Time: 9.00a.m-5.00p.m

Venue: MPFSC

Today was the official initiation of the MPFSC project and it started off with a training session held by the centre for all its volunteers. There was a great disparity of age between our group and the other group of volunteers that had attended the training session and we were initially worried. But after the conclusion of the session we realized that this worry was much unfounded and that the session with them had in fact been a very enriching experience.

This training session’s main aim was to impart skills/techniques of communication to its volunteers. The training at the centre began at 915a.m with mutual introductions being made among the volunteers followed by a talk carried out by regular volunteer Edmund, a pastor at a church. The talk prepared us for what was expected of us and what we could expect to learn from this training session.

After this talk we played a few games to build rapport among us volunteers and to familiarize ourselves with one another. A self-evaluation session then ensued. We carried out a self-evaluation on our individual styles of communication and expression to see where each person’s weaknesses lay and to work on it; while at the same time appreciating each other’s strong points, learning from one other. After the evaluation, we were taught the different roles each style of communication could play in our interaction with the elderly and how each style could supplement the other. This helped us see how to cooperate with and value our fellow volunteers. Lunch followed at 11.20a.m to 12p.m.

During lunch, we discussed the future plans of our project in relation to MPFSC with Edmund. He agreed to be a sort of mentor to us in the course of our project. The tentative arrangement was to have the first visitation session by the 1st week of April and from that time forth we would establish relationships with the elderly were to be attached to,conducting personal visitation sessions with the elderly at our own time.

After lunch we attended another talk by full-time staff Ms. Han Yah Yee on the difficulties one would encounter while doing social work among the elderly. An activity followed after the talk, during which we were split into groups to discuss the various difficulties each had faced while doing social work. As we were greenhorns in this line, we had absorbed and learned much during this session where the very much experienced volunteers shared their own encounters. Some faced unsympathetic wards while others faced unreasonably unruly elderly in their work.

During this session we also had to brainstorm for ideas to deal with these difficulties faced. This was especially useful for the 8 of us as we were then equipped with the necessary preparations in dealing with elderly that could prove difficult. A particular volunteer Mary, with 29years of volunteer-work experience commented using a mandarin quotation, that in getting the cooperation with the elderly, it was always necessary to “persuade the heart of the person than assert the issue without winning the person”. It was lessons like these from the experience of the older volunteers which aided us in our preparation for volunteer work among the elderly.

As a conclusion to the training cum interaction session, Ms Han spoke to us volunteers on the spirit of volunteer work. Something we took away was that we could not expect any recognition from anyone about what we did, but could definitely expect to derive a sense of satisfaction from our work; a satisfaction something wealth could never obtain. The training ended at 5p.m with high tea at parkway.