National Volunteers' Week 2026: Celebrating the people who are making change possible

To mark National Volunteers' Week (Monday 1 June - Sunday 7 June 2026), we wanted to say a heartfelt "THANK YOU!" to the many volunteers who support the It's All About People programme across Lincolnshire.

Everything we do is built on a simple belief: better outcomes start with better relationships. And every day, our volunteers help to bring this to glorious life.

We simply couldn't do what we do without them.

Sharing experiences and shaping change

None of the positive changes we're making across health, care, and wellbeing services would be possible without the time, energy, and expertise of volunteers.

We're privileged to work with a growing army of volunteers, who generously share their experiences, insight, expertise, and energy through our co-production, project work, podcasts, events, learning and development activities, steering groups, and improvement programmes.

By telling their stories and sharing what matters to them, they are helping us to better understand the needs, strengths, and aspirations of people and communities across the county.

Their insights challenge assumptions, spark new ideas, and are helping to ensure that health and care provision in Lincolnshire is developed with people, not for them.

The many faces of volunteering

Our volunteers support the It's All About People programme in many different ways:

Experts by Experience

The Experts by Experience we work with play a vital role in shaping change. They bring valuable insight from their own experiences of health, care, and wellbeing services, helping to shape the direction and growth of It's All About People, influence service design, workforce development, events, resources, and improvement work across the system.

It's All About People Personalisation Champions

We now have over 320 Personalisation Champions in a thriving network that stretches across health, care, community, and voluntary sector organisations. They actively promote personalised and strengths-based approaches, share learning, provide feedback and insight, support colleagues, and are key to driving culture change across the Lincolnshire health and care system.

Community Reporters, Our Shared Agreement Listeners, Story Collectors, and People's Stories Review Panels

We are supported by an every-growing network of volunteers - health, care, and wellbeing colleagues and partners, and members of the public - who want to share their stories and experiences - or help to capture the stories of others.

Volunteers are involved as Community Reporters, Our Shared Agreement Listeners, and in Story gathering work as well as contributing to our weekly podcasts, blogs and articles.

Volunteers are also an essential presence on our People's Story Review Panels, helping to analyse the stories we collect to identify key themes to help shape local priorities.

Facilitators, speakers, and community partners

We are also incredibly grateful to the many volunteers who support our learning and development offer, contributing to workshops and courses (through our 'Train the Trainer' programme), networks, conferences, and community activities. Their knowledge, enthusiasm, and commitment help to create opportunities for health, care, and wellbeing colleagues, and people and communities, to connect, learn, and work together.

More than volunteers

Our volunteers are much more than supporters of the programme. They are valued partners in change creation.

Their contribution is helping to strengthen relationships between people, communities, professionals, and organisations. Their support is key to driving and embedding personalised, strengths-based approaches across Lincolnshire, and to ensuring that people's voices remain right at the heart of health and care.

Thank you

To every volunteer who has shared their time, lived experience, skills, ideas, and passion with us: "THANK YOU!".

Your contribution is making a real difference. Whether you're a member of our Board, have spoken at an event, shared your story, challenged our thinking, supported a project, or helped shape a service, you've played a part in making Lincolnshire's health and care system more personalised, compassionate, and connected.

Volunteer with us!

Creating change is something we do together.

If you're passionate about making health and care more personalised in Lincolnshire and would like to help shape the future of services, we'd love to hear from you.

Contact us at lhnt.itsallaboutpeople@nhs.net ​and we'll arrange a chat to explore how we might work together.