This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
Centre Newsletter
Sign up for the latest news about the Centre.
The Home Visiting Service offers a range of services - befriending, counselling, healing, massage and reflexology which are provided by trained and supervised volunteers - to people who are unable to come to the Centre.
Our clients include:
people housebound with cancer
people undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy or other medical treatment who are feeling too unwell to venture far from home
carers and families of people with cancer, who are often under considerable strain and unable to get out of the house for any length of time.
The Service operates primarily in the borough of Wandsworth but, if volunteers are available, visits can be made to people in surrounding boroughs, including Hammersmith and Fulham, Merton, Chelsea & Westminster and Lambeth.
If you would like a home visiting volunteer to visit you, please contact our Home Visiting Administrator on Mondays and Wednesdays on 020 7924 3924 or email her. She will arrange for someone to make an initial visit to discuss your needs and what service you would like to receive.
Among the benefits described by Home Visiting Service clients are being helped to relax, being given more confidence, feeling cared for and having something to look forward to. A letter received from a client shows the impact that a volunteer can have: " I have been visited weekly by my massage volunteer. I just wanted to let you know how much I look forward to these sessions and say how good she is. Afterwards I feel very relaxed and my pain is eased. I really feel as though someone is looking after me ."
Another client wrote that "the visits have been a lifeline, enabling me to get through the worst of the chemotherapy and bringing some enjoyment back into my life". The benefits of counselling were underlined by one person who said that "it was good to talk about my fears with you. I don't want my family to know how afraid I am". Another client commented: "after the massage treatment, I couldn't believe how relaxed I could feel. I had the best night's sleep since I became ill".
In 2000, the Service won a national Award for Voluntary Endeavour sponsored by the Nationwide Building Society. It also won a nomination of merit in the 1997 Whitbread Volunteer Action Awards "in recognition of the quality of volunteering the Centre achieves".
Clients are offered a series of eight sessions of counselling, healing, massage or reflexology. Befriending is offered in an open-ended way. At the end of a series of sessions, a review takes place to see whether the client needs to receive a further service, either through the Home Visiting Service, or another agency.
To find out more about the services offered, click on the links below:
Befriending
Our befrienders find that they are most often called upon to be a listening ear, to reminisce or to talk with the person about their life, family and interests. Occasionally, help is needed with light shopping or household tasks. Carers too can benefit by taking an hour or two off each week while the befriender stays with the ill relative or friend.
Counselling
A diagnosis of cancer, a course of treatment, the illness or death of a partner or friend can all create shock, fear and confusion. Established ways of doing things, strong emotional ties, familiar patterns of coping and old certainties may be disrupted.
While some people are fortunate and get the support they need from family, friends and community, others feel isolated. Even those surrounded by supportive and loving well-wishers often feel deeply alone. People are often encouraged to "be positive" by their families when they want to express the difficult feelings they have.
Counselling with its combination of understanding, concern and neutrality can help people in this situation. Like a good friend or partner, the counsellor is warm and caring. However, the client doesn't need to worry about overburdening the counsellor, as they might with a friend or partner.
Since the counsellor is not involved in the client's life, this enables him or her to bring an objective view to issues which the client may urgently need. The open-mindedness and impartiality of the counsellor can help the client to explore thoughts and feelings without inhibitions. The client may also need to release bottled-up emotions such as anger, guilt or helplessness.
The benefits of counselling include:
alleviating feelings of loneliness
increasing the ability to communicate, improving relationships
promoting the deeper understanding of emotions
increasing a sense of control
providing a fresh perspective
reducing tension and stress
putting people in touch with their resources of imagination and intuition
helping people to find meaning in what is happening to them.
The spiritual healing given by the Service is not aimed at curing illness or producing miracles. No faith or belief is needed on the part of the client, only an openness to the healing energy which the practitioner channels to them.
Healers work in different ways. The most relaxing way to administer healing is with the client lying down, clothed with their eyes closed. Some healers work through a laying-on of hands while others work around the body, moving their hands over each of the main energy centres. A sensation of heat is often reported, together with a feeling of vibration passing through the body. People may also see colours.
The healing energy gives the client whatever they most need, and counterbalances states like tiredness, depression, hyperactivity and sleeplessness. A healing session usually lasts an hour. Afterwards clients may feel either calmer, more at peace, or have more energy. Sometimes relief from pain or other symptoms occurs. Often a shift of thinking has taken place, so that problems can be seen from a different perspective.
Our experience of massage shows that it is a simple, versatile and extremely effective support for people with cancer at all stages of the cancer journey.
Its benefits include:
creating a sense of well-being
reducing levels of stress
improving self-esteem
soothing and alleviating pain
allowing people to give voice to their thoughts and feelings
A diagnosis of cancer, and its treatments can alienate people from their bodies. People can feel that their body has failed them, or that they have no control over it or the disease. Sometimes cancer treatments radically alter people's bodies in a way they can't accept or people come to experience their bodies solely as a source of discomfort or pain.
Massage has shown itself invaluable in helping people to accept their body as it is and to feel cared for through the experience of gentle touch. Massage can be adapted to suit each person. Just having a face and head massage can bring as many benefits as a more extensive treatment.
Reflexology is a type of massage usually given to the feet, although it can also be given to the hands. The whole body is seen as mapped out on the feet - the right side of the body on the right foot and the left side on the left foot.
The organs or tissues in a particular body zone are linked to reflex points on the feet (or hands) and massage of these points treats the corresponding part of the body.For example, the liver corresponds to a reflex point towards the outer side of the middle part of the sole of the right foot, and the spleen corresponds to a similar point on the sole of the left foot.
There are differing views as to how reflexology works. One view is that gentle massage helps to improve blood circulation and stimulates the body's immune system. Another is that the body's natural energy flow is blocked by illness or stress, and the reflexologist can feel a change in a particular reflex point that corresponds to the blocked part.
Massage to this area can remove the blockage so that energy can flow freely again. A possible effect of reflexology is that massage encourages the body to produce its own painkillers (endorphins), which could lead to fewer painkilling drugs being needed.
Reflexology is very popular with clients and they all say it really helps them to relax.