Helping Hand Volunteers
Hand to Hold carefully matches seasoned parents (Helping Hands) with a new parent in need of support. These peer-to-peer relationships inspire hope and offer the chance to ask personal questions and receive support from someone who is uniquely familiar with the experience of a pregnancy with complications, bedrest, preterm birth, life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a child or multiples born with a special health care need, loss of pregnancy and/or infant loss.
Helping Hands must attend a one-time training session before being matched with a new parent. Training focuses on the difference between peer-to-peer support and support provided by a trained professional counselor. Information regarding effective listening skills, signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and self-care is also provided.
There is no charge associated with the training.
Beginning in Spring 2012 Hand to Hold with conduct its training online. Parents will have access to our training curriculum and will work one-on-one with our Family Support Navigator by phone, email, and -when possible – in person.
Read through our Frequently Asked Questions for more details. To sign up to attend the next training, please sign up on our Volunteer Contact List or contact Erika Goyer at erika [at] handtohold [dot] org directly for more information.
Ronald McDonald Room Hosts
In partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin & Central Texas, Hand to Hold is looking for volunteers who will help staff the Ronald McDonald Family Room located inside St. David’s North Austin Medical Center/St. David’s Women’s Center of Texas. This family room provides respite to families with a child in the NICU and contains a kitchenette, computers with Internet access, comfy couches, and snacks. Read on about this opportunity and learn how to volunteer.
Other Direct Service Roles for Seasoned Parents
- From time to time, Hand to Hold conducts Cookies and Milk sessions, where former NICU parents bake sweet treats and pay a short visit to local area NICUs to share sweet treats, explain Hand to Hold’s resources, lend an ear and share the unique fellowship of parents who have experienced similar journeys.
- We also provide baked treats to local NICUs to celebrate Neonatal Nurse Appreciation Day in September.
- Opportunities occur throughout the year for parents to help us equip local Central Texas NICUs and waiting rooms with helpful resources, information and sibling color books to share more resources to families and make their stay easier.
- Trained peer mentor volunteers have served on parent panels to help better educate health professionals about how to better care for families who have had a pregnancy with complications, a baby or multiples born early, one or more babies with special health care needs and those experiencing loss.
- Hand to Hold also has convened a Bereavement Task Force for parents who have experienced a loss and who wish to be involved in shaping the development of services and programs specifically for these families.
- If you’d like to help by sharing your experience with parents currently in the NICU, Hand to Hold has begun a hospital-based NICU support group.
Other Volunteer Opportunities
- We invite professionals and parents interested in serving in a leadership role to contact us about a board of directors or advisory council position or serving as a Champion for Families.
- As we develop our online social network, we will be looking for seasoned parent volunteers to help welcome newcomers to interact in an online space. Our PreemieBabies101 blog will be launching this April 2012! We are currently recruiting bloggers who have a tie to prematurity, special needs and loss.
- We welcome internship candidates at all levels. Send us a letter of interest and resume to learn more.
- Hand to Hold welcomes volunteers to help us build new bridges to individuals and organizations to further the mission for one-to-one peer support. If you have experience with fundraising, operations, marketing or promotions, please sign up on our Volunteer Contact List or contact us directly to learn more.
Stay in Touch
Join the Hand to Hold Volunteer list to receive more information, to request a specific volunteer position and to receive regular updates of volunteer needs. Once you join the volunteer list, we will be in contact shortly. Contact erika [at] handtohold [dot] org to learn more.
I had my son, Aidan, at 34 weeks gestation. Though he was a good weight at five pounds four ounces, we learned he needed immediate surgery because he had a condition in which his intestines and stomach protruded out of his abdomen. Aiden went on to spend seven weeks recovering in the NICU. I remember feeling lost, scared, and completely overwhelmed. I want to help because the road doesn’t always end when you go home, but having that support that it will be okay gets you through it. I want to be the one to provide that support to help another.
—Melissa T. Overy, mother to Aiden born at 34 weeks and Dom born at 28 weeks
