What opportunities to volunteer has Sky presented you with?

My name is Helen Devonald I am a PA working in Finance at the Osterley site in London.

Why did you sign up with Sky Cares to volunteer?

I love talking to people, particularly older people. I was a carer for my mum when she was alive and I’m currently a carer for my brother.

Now, since volunteering with The Silver Line, a lot of the topics that I’m discussing on calls, cross over with my life; things I’ve experienced and things that are currently happening to me now, so it’s helping me a lot.

Sometimes it helps me as much as the person calling the Helpline, though I don’t let on, but it resonates, a lot of the issues that they discuss with me, because I’ve gone through it or I’m going through it right now, or I may go through it in the future.

What opportunities to volunteer has Sky presented you with?

This is my first volunteering at Sky and it’s been brilliant and will be ongoing – I have covered 150 hours so far.

What does volunteering mean to you?

I’ve done quite a lot of volunteering, but nothing like The Silver Line Helpline before, where I’ve dedicated long periods of time to it.

What appealed to me about The Silver Line originally, was that I thought it was it just talking to one person; connecting with one person, but now I love speaking with lots of different people. I think it works for me because I can work it around my job. I try to do 3 hours a week; one hour a day, for three consecutive days, so that I can fit it round work and my busy schedule.

What I like about it is the variety of people. I didn’t think in the beginning it would be for me, I thought maybe a one to one, talking to the same person, would be more suitable for my kind of personality, but the fact I’ve branched out and I’m having to talk to different types of people, with different mental health issues, family issues, emotions, has been so rewarding. In fact, it’s made me think that maybe counselling or something like that, might be an area I’d like to go into the future.

Can you see the positive impact of the volunteering you do?

I would say that The Silver Line for me, has been my silver lining, because it’s made me feel more present in the everyday and makes me realise how lucky I am with what I’ve got now and it’s also giving me a forecast of what could be, if I don’t look at myself now, at this age.

I come off those calls feeling “my goodness I’ve learned something again today” and it makes me appreciate my corporate job more, because the people I’m dealing with there are very young and they’re very career minded. They’re in their 20s and they haven’t gone through a lot of life experiences yet; they’re lovely and they’re excited and it’s a good combination, going from that to my hour of volunteering at The Silver Line.

I’m going from excitement to real life for older people, and it just brings it back to what’s real, what’s important, it makes for interesting conversation, but also really thought-provoking conversation too.

Do you feel rewarded as a result of the volunteering work?

This type of volunteering is invaluable experience and teaches you advance listening skills and communication styles and most of all humility – everyone should try this at some point in their lives as we cannot take the everyday for granted.

We will all face challenges the older we get. Doing Silverline is an insightful life lesson to the volunteer unbeknown to the callers.

What one piece of advice would you give to someone thinking about volunteering?

If a colleague were considering volunteering with The Silver Line Helpline, I would tell them “If you’ve not had empathy in your body before, you’re definitely going to get it!” It really teaches you the importance of the basic things in life.

It doesn’t just help the older people who call, it does so much for the person that’s volunteering too.