What Do Lifeline Ballarat Crisis Supporters Say About Volunteering?

We have an amazing team of volunteers at Lifeline Ballarat, working on the phones as Crisis Supporters. At our latest volunteer forum, our Crisis Supporters told us that the benefits of their work include:

• A sense of community
• Opportunities for ongoing learning and development
• A welcoming, committed, and supportive team at Lifeline Ballarat
• Excellent training, supervision and support

At Lifeline Ballarat we are proud of our high-quality training program and the ongoing learning opportunities and support we provide for our Crisis Supporters. Here is what some of our volunteer Crisis Supporters have told us about what it’s like to volunteer at Lifeline Ballarat:

An ABC news story in early 2022 told the story of one of our long serving volunteers, Julia Nutting. According to the story, Ms Nutting began volunteering for Lifeline in 1999 in Melbourne before moving to Ballarat three years later. Despite being in her 80s, Ms Nutting still has a thirst to learn from the next generation of volunteers. "Sometimes when you're training a new person, you learn new ways to approach things that you never would have thought to do before," she said.

In more than 23 years of volunteering, Julia Nutting has held on to one thing: hope. "My favourite word in the English language is hope," Ms Nutting said. "There's always hope, so it's nice to guide people towards it if you can."

For the full story on ABC News, click here.

In 2020, the Ballarat Courier interviewed Lifeline Ballarat volunteer Odette Wells, who had volunteered with the organisation for over five years. Here is some of what Odette said: "I was motivated to do the training because I wanted to give something back," Ms Wells said. "I was at a time in my life where I had the time. I worked in the business world and it was a little bit impersonal. I wanted to talk to and deal with real people." Ms Wells said the Lifeline training helped her to recognise her own prejudices and judgement, to better listen to and support others.

"Through Lifeline training you learn how to ask someone if they are suicidal. That is really difficult for most people. The training brings everything down to ground level where you think 'I could ask that person and I am not afraid of the answer - if they say yes I will be able to support them'. "For ordinary people, they might have this assumption you need extraordinary skills to be able to be a volunteer. But it is ordinary people callers want to talk to," she said.

For the full interview published in the Ballarat Courier in 2020 click here.