South West
Rachel Stewart
Regional Rep (South West)
With a background in education as a primary school teacher, Rachel has ‘dipped her toe into the water’ of a wide variety of jobs from the civil service to computer programming. After having children her career took off in earnest when she started out in the Voluntary Sector 14 years ago and she really has not looked back!
Her initial involvement was with children’s charities, Barnardo’s and Spurgeons supporting service delivery. From 2008 onwards she has been in leadership and management positions; these included setting up and running Sure Start children’s centres and a young carers’ service across Wiltshire. Inspired by seeing the difference volunteering made to both volunteers and service users, she set up a volunteer mentoring scheme for young carers. This led onto a new role, setting up a pilot project for another children’s charity with a volunteer team offering practical help and support to families with a child with a life threatening illness.
In 2017 Rachel took on the role of Volunteer Development Manager at Dorothy House Hospice, Wiltshire and quickly recognised how invaluable the support offered by the HVMN is. She took on the role of membership secretary to the Executive team in 2018/19 and co-chairs the south west region. Over the short 3 years since joining Dorothy House, she has tried out many ideas and models of working that have first been discovered at HVMN meetings and conferences.
Outside work Rachel has volunteered her time and skills to offer training for volunteers in another charity. She is involved in a range of church activities from worship leading to any events involving food.
Steph Robey
Regional Rep (South West)
Hi we’re the Regional Reps for the southwest – Steph Robey and Rachel Stewart.
We have healthy number of members across the southwest, and cover a large area reaching right down to Cornwall and across to the Channel Islands. We welcome new members, including anyone involved in palliative or end of life care outside of hospices.
We have regular network meetings which were running at a central location but will be carried out remotely on Zoom for the time being.
We are a friendly and supportive group. Members are encouraged to share issues that they want to discuss as well as successful projects. We sometimes have other organisations attending our meetings to provide relevant specialist information.
We keep in touch outside of meetings as well retaining contact via email and sharing questions sent in by members for replies from the group. We recommend you join us, because it’s a great way to develop your practice and meet other likeminded people.