Make an impact with Volunteer Brum!

Across Birmingham, everyday life is moving online - from keeping in touch with family to managing appointments, bills and services. For many older people and those living with long-term health conditions or disabilities, this shift can feel daunting and, at times, isolating. That’s where Digital Café Volunteers come in. Digital NNS works with Birmingham’s ten Neighbourhood Network Schemes , along with community groups, social prescribers and social workers, to build digital confidence where it’s needed most. The focus is simple but vital: making sure everyone has access to the digital tools, technology and services that many of us now take for granted. Turning this vision into reality are Digital Cafés - friendly, local drop-in sessions to be held in community spaces across the city. Volunteers sit down with residents, often over a cuppa, and help them make sense of their own devices, whether that’s a smartphone, tablet or laptop. No pressure. No jargon. Just patient, one-to-one help in a relaxed setting. Volunteering is flexible and fits around real life. You can give as much or as little time as you’re able, using skills you already have. There’s no formal training required, because if you can use your own phone or laptop, you already know enough. The help people ask for is often simple but hugely important, like freeing up storage, managing emails, unsubscribing from endless newsletters, downloading or deleting apps, or setting up video calls to speak with family and friends. Volunteers are not expected to deal with more specialist issues such as the NHS App or online safety around scams. Those areas are covered by Neighbourhood Network Scheme staff and other trained professionals. Your role is about the everyday frustrations that can stop people using their devices with confidence. As Rickie Josen, Digital NNS Community Lead , puts it: “The beauty of Digital Cafés is that if you can use a smartphone, you have the skills we need. No special training required — just pick a café near you and give an hour when it suits you. You’ll be helping people unlock new opportunities through digital skills, from accessing essential services online to reconnecting with loved ones. “What matters most isn’t technical expertise, but kindness, patience and the ability to listen . We’re looking for people who enjoy helping others, can explain things clearly and treat everyone with respect and good humour. There are no age limits, and people from all walks of life are encouraged to get involved.” If you’d like to make a real difference in your neighbourhood - helping people feel more confident, more connected and less alone in a digital world – Digital NNS would love to hear from you. Join Birmingham’s growing network of Digital Café Volunteers and be part of something genuinely worthwhile. Find out more about this opportunity

On Thursday 4 December, 35 young people aged 14-18 from across Birmingham came together with frontline NHS staff to explore how Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust collects and explains ethnicity data. The group was recruited by career coaches as part of the Volunteering for Health Programme. Building on ideas first explored in an earlier session in August, the focus was on how these conversations can feel safer, clearer and more supportive for patients, families and staff. The young people shared practical, creative ideas for improving how information is communicated, while staff helped ground these suggestions in day-to-day practice so they can genuinely shape future approaches. Ethnicity data is essential for understanding and reducing health inequalities. Without it, we cannot see whether changes in care are reaching the communities that experience the greatest disparities in health outcomes. The young people have helped identify clearer, more human and more meaningful ways to explain this, making sure families understand how sharing this information directly supports better, fairer care. Across the project, the young people developed a range of creative and practical ideas. These included: using text messages via the existing patient portal app to explain why the data is requested and why it matters short videos to be shown in waiting rooms or shared ahead of appointments a poster campaign, and a schools-based programme where students take a resource pack into their schools and run assemblies on health inequalities and data. Some of the students will be road-testing this approach. The third and final session on 16 December focused on developing these ideas further, and we’re particularly excited to be bringing the Trust’s communications team into the final phase. They will help shape the electronic and film-based outputs so they are engaging, accessible and ready for real-world use. We were also delighted to be joined by our Chief Nurse, Daljeet, who visited the group, shared her support, and passed on her compliments, recognising both the importance of this work and the value of young people leading change in how we communicate with families. This project is a powerful example of how youth voice, lived experience and creativity can strengthen how we tackle health inequalities in practice. We are excited for the final session in February, led by the communications team. Find out more about the Volunteering for Health Birmingham and Solihull Programme https://www.bvsc.org/volunteering-for-health

As 2025 draws to a close, Volunteer Brum is marking a major milestone: more than 2,000 individuals have signed up to giving their time through the platform. It’s quite something when you remember that Volunteer Brum only launched in March 2025. In just nine months, the response has exceeded our expectations, demonstrating that people from across Birmingham are clearly keen to get stuck in and lend a hand. More than 175 organisations are now registered on the platform. Large charities, small community groups, food banks, youth groups – a full range. This mix is why Volunteer Brum works so well - it's a single place where anyone can look for something that fits their interests, their schedule, or simply what they feel passionate about. People volunteer for all sorts of reasons. Some want to give something back to their city. Others are looking to build confidence, gain experience for work, or meet new people. Some just enjoy being useful. Whatever the motivation, it all makes a difference. BVSC's CEO Brian Carr commented: “This milestone is a great way to mark the end of one year and the beginning of another. The fact that more than 2,000 individuals have stepped forward in just nine months speaks volumes about the spirit of compassion and mutual support that's alive and flourishing in Birmingham. Volunteer Brum helps to strengthen the city's foundations for long-term community resilience, and we’re excited to support this growing network of volunteers as they continue to enrich lives right across our city.” Two Birmingham organisations that have been successfully connecting with new volunteers via Volunteer Brum are Marie Curie and We Are Listening . Here's what they had to say: "Volunteer Brum has been instrumental in helping Marie Curie connect with passionate individuals - making it easier to reach more people who want to make a difference - enabling us to provide even more care and support to those who need it most." Deborah Harvey, Talent Acquisiton Specialist at Marie Curie "BVSC has been instrumental in helping us expand our reach and promote our volunteering opportunities across the community. Through this support we have successfully welcomed a diverse range of volunteers, each bringing valuable experience and skills to our telephone befriending service.” Charlene Duxbury, Programme Coordinator, We Are Listening "Befriending reminds me that kindness and compassion hold transformative power, and that they are shared mutually within this relationship. The opportunity to connect across geographic and cultural boundaries has profoundly enriched my life. I feel humbled in receiving my client’s wisdom and in learning from the uniqueness of their lived experience." Kristy, We Are Listening Volunteer If you’re giving some thought to what you’d like 2026 to look like, and you want to make space for something genuinely worthwhile, take a look at Volunteer Brum by clicking the link below. And if nothing quite fits straight away, don’t be put off as new opportunities are added all the time - it’s well worth checking back regularly. Search Volunteer Brum