Salt of the Earth: Meet Lea Preston the volunteer changing lives in Scarborough

This week is a little different. Lea Preston, 36, first came into contact with Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale mind not as a volunteer, but as a service user.

Lea, who lives in Eastfield, came to the area from Tamworth in Staffordshire just over eight years ago.

After living with her mother in Cayton, she soon decided to make the move permanent.

A victim of childhood trauma which resulted in PTSD left Lea unwilling to leave the house, but Mind support worker Colin Campbell worked alongside her and helped her to find a home and sort her finances out.

As time went on, Lea grew stronger and more confident and quickly decided that she wanted to help people herself.

She said: “Colin said they needed volunteers, so I offered to help. I went into the office initially to do telephone work with service users. Now I’m waiting for a DBS check so I can go out and about.

“They gave me 1-2-1 training and went through what was expected from me. The legalities, not talking about other people’s business, maintaining boundaries and how to deal with different scenarios.

“It’s very different from being in an office to being in a 1-2-1.”

To begin, volunteers working in the community, work with those with anxiety and depression, people deemed to be ‘low risk’.

When a support worker decides that their input is no longer needed, the client is introduced to a volunteer and after a three-way conversation they move on.

Since the pandemic began Mind has been offering covid support, ringing anyone who is struggling and checking in with them.

Volunteers such as Lea have collected prescriptions, passed noted to the covid support hub and picked up shopping. They have also helped people to source face mask exemption cards.

Lea has also been involved in putting together wellbeing packs for children and adults, colouring books, sweets, candles and small books have been added to help brighten people’s days.

She’s now writing individual Christmas cards to each of the charity’s service users to ensure they all know they are being thought about at Christmas.

Lea said: “ I dropped a wellbeing pack off to one lady and she had a few tears in her eyes. I was the first person she had seen in two weeks.

“I know it can’t change the world, it’s only a little difference, but a lot of little things can change an outcome."

Lea said being involved in the service has helped her own mental health. She has access to resources and books on depression, anxiety and PTSD, and has started learning stress management techniques.

Lea said: “I suppose I feel a sense of achievement and I feel as though I’m contributing to helping people get better.

“I want to give back and learn a bit more about my own mental health as well.

“It’s been very personal. I’ve learnt that the brain and heart work in sync with each other.

“I feel as though it’s had a positive impact turning my own life around, having already been in the service myself.

“People think that it’s going to be stressful working with poorly and vulnerable people, but they’re not going to be thrown in at the deep end

“Long term I’d like to be employed by the service, but that all depends on funding.”

Sophie Hall, CEO of Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale Mind said: “Lea initially came to us for support through Side by Side after relocating to the area and her support worker Colin quickly picked up on the fact that she'd make a brilliant volunteer.

“Lea came to help out in the office a couple of days a week and was an absolute godsend from the beginning as she turned her hand to whatever came her way from phone calls to e-baying to helping interview new staff.

“After she'd become more confident, Lea was keen to get involved in the mental health support side and throughout this year she's provided valuable telephone support to a whole range of people struggling with isolation during lockdown as well as helping out the team at the Covid hub to deliver food parcels, prescriptions and go shopping for people unable to leave the home.

“Lea's developed a keen interest in mental health and is ploughing through a whole range of training courses so she can better support people who need our help and she's shown remarkable dedication to learning as much as possible about mental health and the challenges people are facing.

“Lea is such a valuable part of our team and has really made a difference to the lives of so many people who are isolated, vulnerable or going through a challenging time in life.

“She is incredibly empathetic and caring; when my brother passed away unexpectedly during summer, she was one of the first people on the phone to see what she could do to help and I'm hugely thankfully to her personally for the care and support she has shown to me, our staff team and all the service users she has been in touch with.

“Volunteers are simply the lifeblood of our organisation. Our area is seeing unprecedented demand for help and with such a small team, we just can't support everyone with staff alone.

“Our current staff and volunteer team are supporting over 200 people one to one but we have close to another 100 people on the waiting list yet to be seen and more referrals come in daily.

“People are spread throughout the region but we particularly need volunteers in Scarborough Centre and then throughout the rural areas of Ryedale and Esk Valley so those with a car and a will to travel!

“All our volunteers go through a mental health training programme followed by top up training and other opportunities for learning such as first aid for mental health.

“Whilst it takes a little time to get up and running, it's important we make sure volunteers have the skills and knowledge to support some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

“Our volunteers not only change lives, they save them and at a time when so many people are struggling with mental ill health and isolation, we need them more than ever!

If you would like to get involved, you can contact Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale Mind by calling 01723 379 058.