Companion Volunteer: One Hour, One Visit, One Heart

Companion Volunteer — One Hour, One Visit, One Heart

One hour. One visit. One heart. Sometimes that’s all it takes to remind someone that they still matter.

Many people living in long-term care communities have very few opportunities for meaningful connection outside of the people who provide their care. Some rarely receive a visit from anyone.

The National Association of Long-Term Care Volunteers (NALTCV) is looking for Companion Volunteers who are willing to spend time getting to know someone living in a long-term care community.

This isn’t about entertaining someone or filling time. It’s about building an authentic relationship.

You might talk over coffee, listen to music, look through photographs, play cards, take a walk, share stories, or simply sit together and talk. What you do matters less than the fact that you keep coming back.

What you’ll do

• Visit regularly with a person living in a long-term care community
• Spend approximately one hour together during each visit
• Listen, talk, share interests, and build a genuine one-to-one relationship
• Respect the resident’s choices, interests, privacy, and independence
• Work cooperatively with the long-term care community where you volunteer

We’ll prepare you

You don’t need experience working in long-term care.

NALTCV provides training designed specifically for people volunteering in long-term care communities. You’ll learn about communication, boundaries, resident rights, dementia, meaningful engagement, and how to build a relationship based on trust and respect.

The long-term care community where you volunteer may also require its own orientation, background screening, or other onboarding requirements.

Companion Volunteers complete NALTCV’s required training and maintain an individual NALTCV subscription. The annual fee is $35.

Who makes a good Companion Volunteer?

You don’t need special skills. You do need to be:

• A good listener
• Dependable
• Patient and respectful
• Curious about another person’s life
• Comfortable developing a relationship over time
• Willing to show up consistently

Most importantly, you should genuinely enjoy spending time with another person.

Why it matters

For someone who seldom receives visitors, seeing a familiar face walk through the door can mean far more than we sometimes realize.

And companionship works both ways. Volunteers often discover that the relationship they came to give becomes something they value just as much.

One Hour. One Visit. One Heart.

Come be that person for someone.

Apply today: https://naltcv.org/new-volunteers