How volunteering helped a new mum find her strength and start a charity

Ellie Grace
01 September 2017

At the Family and Childcare Trust, we’ve seen Parent Champions find fulfilment, strength and confidence through volunteering. This year, Lucia Daniels, Coordinator for Parent Champions Wandsworth, celebrates 35 years since she became a volunteer in the borough. Here she shares where it has led her:

This March, our Parent Champions team were invited to the Family and Childcare Trust’s annual Parent Champions conference to talk about our scheme and share our experience with other Parent Champions volunteers from around the country. I was proud to be there as part of the Parent Champions Wandsworth team and hearing the volunteers speak at the event led me to reflect on my own journey from starting out as a volunteer 35 years ago.

I became a volunteer in Wandsworth after facing challenges when it came to returning to work after I had my first child. It felt right to get involved in a local group to help other new mums facing similar issues around juggling work and family life, especially those with a child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in need of greater flexibility and support for other reasons. Feeling shy and incredibly nervous, I found volunteering very worthwhile. It was an ordeal at first to sit in meetings with strangers (including meetings at Wandsworth Town Hall), especially when I was asked to contribute with a presentation. I would get all the hallmarks of terror at public speaking –sweaty palms, knocking knees, wanting to run and hide.

Lucia, Parent Champion — Lucia speaking at the Parent Champions conference and awards 2017

Volunteering may have stretched my comfort zones and added to my already busy commitments, but it also added value to my life, rebuilding my knocked confidence and unearthing previously untapped inner resources. My work totally changed direction and for the past 30 years its focus has been on helping parents and other carers. Five years on from starting as a volunteer, I became a founding director of a charity called Parents At Work. Its aim was to campaign on behalf of parents’ rights at work and for more and better childcare. In 1994, we set up a special section for working parents of children with disabilities called the ‘Waving not Drowning’ campaign. Parents at Work merged with New Ways to Work in 2003 to form Working Families, the UK’s leading work-life balance organisation. ‘Waving not Drowning’, now run by Working Families, is still going strong today.

Family care needs for elderly parents led me to step back from a full time job and to juggle caring with part time projects with Carers UK, the hospice movement and elsewhere. More recently, the development of the WAND card, a convenient form of ID for children and young people with SEND to access suitable assistance and concession across the city, and working with the Parent Champions Wandsworth team has been really rewarding. I’ve learnt that volunteering doesn’t just make a big difference to others, but has made a massive difference to me too.

Find out more about volunteering as a Parent Champion. Learn more about setting up a Parent Champions scheme in your area.