Find a way to volunteer and happiness—learning from experience of Xuhui District Central Hospital volunteer group

We’ve long since heard that Xuhui District Central Hospital (XDCH) volunteer service team has earned recognition among Shanghai hospitals for their outstanding performance. How to draw lessons from their good experience to improve our own volunteer group? With curiosity and a heart willing to ask for advice, the comrades of our volunteer service team started the trip of “borrowing ideas” led by Director of Party Committee Li Xuelian.

Ms. Xu XDCH of volunteer service team gave us a warm welcome, and then slowly told us about the team’s journey over 3 years—in the very beginning and also the most difficult period, Ms. Xu also visited and Shanghai East Hospital and Children's Hospital other hospitals which had conducted volunteer practice 7 or 8 years before. The experience of these hospitals prepared the ground for XDCH’s original volunteer work. While the specialized social work organization and personnel of Shanghai East Hospital and Children's Hospital unattainable to other hospitals, XDCH cleverly became one of the practice units for Shanghai Volunteer Network, striving for volunteers from all walks of life under the unified supervision of Shanghai Volunteer Network and volunteer associations. At the same time, they actively negotiated with East China University of Politics and Law to become its internship site for Social Work Department. On this basis, XDCH learned the volunteer management mode from the specialists and professors of Social Work Department, and improved its framework for building the hospital volunteer team. Step by step, they worked on the perfection of volunteer service project design, management, team training, supporting systems as well as an incentive system. The volunteer team of XDCH was not merely a result of the hard work of Ms. Xu or the social work department of XDCH, but of the joint efforts of all departments and all levels of the hospital. Everyone’s respect, kindness, support and help paved a smooth road for the volunteers and finally led to the success of their service.

In the office of Social Work Department, we saw the photos and files of previous volunteer events, recording the effort made by each volunteer. However, so much remained unsaid by the shots and numbers ... ... When leaving, we were lucky to meet the volunteers of the day, which consisted of teenagers and over 50 year-old aunts, and even pairs of mother and daughters. Some of them worked as guides or medical assistants in the outpatient department, the others went into wards to visit patients. All of the volunteers were wearing a pure, happy smile, which was unforgettable. Helping others makes us incomparably happy. These valuable experiences will be brought back to the Red House, to make our home nice and warm with volunteers as well.