Every year in Ireland almost 9,000 people die from heart disease and stroke and a further hundreds of thousands are living with a heart condition or the life-long effects of a stroke.
The Irish Heart Foundation is a community of people who fight to protect and care for every heart affected by heart disease or stroke in Ireland and support those living with these life-changing conditions.
Volunteers are at the heart of what we do and we couldn’t do it without your support.
At the Irish Heart Foundation we offer a range of support services to help improve the quality of life and well-being of people and their carers after a heart event or stroke.
From simply phoning someone for a chat to providing vital peer support or driving a vulnerable stroke patient to their support group, your act of kindness can make a real difference.
We are always looking for volunteers to help us with our patient support services.
“ I find ringing members weekly for a social chat so enjoyable I really look forward to it, it’s one small way to give back but it is hugely rewarding”
Listed below are a variety of volunteer roles we are currently recruiting for.
Stroke Connect Service Telephone Volunteer – This role involves working as part of the experienced stroke connect team to help members and their carers to live well after stroke, you will be allocated a small caseload making health and well-being calls weekly over a number of week and you will be supported by your assigned patient support coordinator and the stroke connect coordinator.
Let’s Talk Telephone Peer Volunteer – This role involves a person who has lived experience of heart disease or stroke or have you cared for someone living with cardiovascular disease that would ring a member to share their lived experience and help our members on their recovery journey, in this role you will be trained and fully supported by our Let’s Talk programme lead, you will have a small case load of calls to make and we will try match volunteers to members that are most suited to help both the volunteers and members really get benefit from the calls.
Heart Telephone Volunteer – This role involves a volunteer phoning a member of our heart support network to inform them of the information and support services available through the Irish Heart Foundation, you will be assigned a caseload from your heart programme lead who will also support you.
Patient Support E-Volunteers – This role involves helping to moderate the Irish Heart Foundation private support groups on Facebook or assisting our patient services team with our online support sessions mainly via Zoom, with this role we would need you to commit to either a weekly online zoom session that may last up to two hours or a monthly evening zoom session and with our closed Facebook groups a two hour shift over a weekend, Saturday or Sunday during the hours of 10-6pm on a rota basis, you will be supported by the programme lead, and a team of E-Volunteer supervisors, you will get full training with an emphasis on how to escalate a concern.
Content Assistant – This role involves joining our volunteer content team, helping research content for our IHF private Facebook support group pages, with positive up lifting posts, relevant content that may benefit the members recovery, all content will be approved by the Facebook programme lead, this role is very flexible and can be done in the volunteers own time.
In Person Volunteer Support:
Community Group Volunteer – This role involves assisting with our in person support groups in the community, you will be supported by our Patient Support Services Coordinators. . This role would involves engaging with our members and encouraging them and their carers on the recovery journey. Our community volunteers are the face of the Irish Heart Foundation at a community level and may also assist by representing the Irish Heart Foundation with cheques collections, school presentations and IHF campaigns when needed.
Community Driver Volunteer – This involves collecting members and driving them to their support groups, collecting them afterwards and bringing them home. Community, you will be supported by the Patient Support Services Coordinator.
Patient Support Administrator –This role entails where our administration volunteer will come into the Irish Heart Foundation head office in Rathmines to help with Patient Service administrative work/data input, telephone calls and special projects you will be supported by the programme lead of the area you are assisting with.
Irish Heart Foundation Champion – A Heart, Stroke or Carer champion who wants to give back and help advocate for the needs of others through our work. This will include attending conferences, joining focus groups, assisting with media coverage or helping with national campaigns and advocating at local level to TDs etc. Volunteers will be assisted and supported by our Advocacy Department.
“ I enjoy advocating for young stroke survivors, having our voices heard and helping to drive change for the better to live well after stroke”
If you think you’re the perfect fit for one or any of these roles please email IHFvolunteer@irishheart.ie our volunteer department listing the role you are interested in, please note with all of the above roles you will be given full training and support and supervision by the programme leads and the IHF Volunteer Programme Department.
Vetting volunteer requirements:
Mandatory Training requirements:
Other Volunteer Training that may be required:
This list is not exhaustive and maybe be changed to fulfil the needs of the volunteer role
