Glen Wiseman, sexual health expert and volunteer at The Mix

by The Mix Staff

Monday 30th April 2018

My name is Glen Wiseman and I’m a sexual health youth worker, sex educator and psychotherapy student. I am 34 and live in Bracknell Forest. I have worked in sexual health for nine years and loved almost every second of it. I regularly use and signpost to The Mix as part of my day job for information and support. I really wanted to help this fantastic resource and thought my skills and experience in listening to young people around sex and relationships would be best placed in the Relationship Squad. I have very limited use of discussion forums and thought becoming a moderator would allow me to really understand how people use this resource.

Every week I answer questions and provide support for people on the sex and relationships message boards. This can involve giving accurate information or support for someone to work out how they want to handle a situation. We make sure people are kind and not insulting or breaking message board rules. On the whole, everyone is amazing and it’s the community of users that are able to support each other. Regularly we create discussion topics and topical threads for people to offer their thoughts and experiences on, giving different points of view. That’s always an interesting read.

Since volunteering, I’ve realised that communicating and supporting through a message board is very different to face to face conversations. Sometimes you get to stay updated with someone’s journey or moment of difficulty. This can bring up some real sadness, but when things turn around or work out for them you also get to read their relief or joy. It makes me feel immensely proud to be involved with The Mix and to be a part of the help they received.

The Mix is different from any other volunteering experience in that this is the first time I have been able to volunteer from my own home. It’s really flexible and I’m supported to make sure my volunteering fits in with my work and studies.