Rochdale, Child & Family Connect and Rochdale Volunteer Driver Service, collect Queen’s Award

Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Warren Smith; Child and Family Connect, Wendy Smith and Kath Williams; and the Vice Lord-Lieutenant, Mrs Edith Conn

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Rochdale, Child & Family Connect and Rochdale Volunteer Driver Service, received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which has equivalent status as the MBE, at a special ceremony at Gorton Monastery in East Manchester on Monday 3 August.

Rochdale Child & Family Connect Contact Centre is one of five contact centres in the North West that offer supported contact at neutral venues which enable children to develop and maintain positive relationships with non-resident parents and other family members.

The centre has been in existence for over 20 years and is run by a group of enthusiastic volunteers. They provide a safe and caring environment where estranged parents can bring their children.

Children play and learn with the estranged parent and the other parent can wait in an adjacent lounge, knowing their children are safe in a supervised stress free environment.

The Centre is open every Saturday for four hours. The children live in the Rochdale area, but the other parent live may live in a wide geographical area, indeed one parent travels from Paris to meet his children. Whilst there is a need for this service in most Boroughs, other similar Groups have folded due to a lack of volunteers.

The Centre Co-ordinator at Rochdale, Wendy Smith, has attended every weekly session for the 20 years since the group was formed. Her dedication, enthusiasm and dogged determination, has been instrumental in sustaining the group’s viability.

The Rochdale Volunteer Driver Scheme is a community based transport service for Rochdale residents who are aged 50 and over. The scheme is run by volunteers using their own cars to provide transport for people to attend health appointments and leisure facilities, particularly when they need additional support such as someone to wait for them.

The group of volunteers came together 6 years ago. They provide a bespoke service for frail and vulnerable adults. Clients can pre book a driver for a variety of reasons, hospital or GP appointments, shopping visiting friends, theatre visits etc. The service demand has grown to nearly 1700 journeys a month.

The drivers who have regular clients stay with them throughout the hospital or GP appointment and on shopping trips so there is no waiting for return trips.

The service provides a lifeline for frail or vulnerable adults who otherwise would be at risk of isolation in the community.

A number of the volunteer drivers have been unemployed, and their work as drivers has assisted them back into employment.

A couple in their 90’s who use the service for hospital visits said: “All the volunteers who accept our request are helpful and efficient and the drivers are friendly patient and prompt.”

Mary Burke, Volunteer Driver Service Coordinator at the Rochdale Volunteer Driver Service said: “The CVSR Volunteer Driver Service is delighted to have won this award. To receive this recognition is a testament to the dedication and commitment of our team of volunteers in delivering a much needed and valued service in the community, funded by Rochdale Borough Council.

“Our service provides a lifeline to a section of the community at risk of becoming isolated due to health and mobility issues. Being able to access our service has enabled many of our service users to retain their independence, reduce social isolation and enhance their Health and Wellbeing.”

In total twenty-two voluntary groups from across the county collected an engraved, commemorative crystal trophy and a certificate signed by Her Majesty the Queen presented by Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Warren Smith and the Vice Lord-Lieutenant, Mrs Edith Conn. The ceremony was attended for the first time by Martyn Lewis, former ITN and BBC news broadcaster and journalist, who is Chairman of The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service Committee.

Commenting on the Rochdale award winners, The Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Warren Smith, said: “These are two very worthy award winners. Each charity has an inspiring story and it’s both humbling and heart-warming to hear them. Both help improve the lives of local people and is therefore so deserving of this prestigious award, the equivalent to getting an MBE, which champions best practice in volunteering. I would like to see even more of Greater Manchester’s voluntary organisations nominated next year’s awards.”