Sandra has only been receiving the befriending phone calls for a few weeks, she has had lots of bereavements in the last few years. She has lost her parents and all of her siblings. Sandra had a heart attack in 2021 and other serious health issues. She said she was in a dark place because of how lonely she felt, and how she felt like she had no-one to talk to.
She now receives the befriending phone calls once a fortnight and looks forward to them immensely, she has recently really connected with one of our volunteers and the volunteer has said how much of a darling Sandra is and how much she looks forward to the calls as they both benefit from having someone to talk to. Both Sandra and the volunteer enjoy having the calls with each other as they have a lot in common.
She stays in bed most of the day as she feels tired all the time and doesn’t really like going out. She does like to sit in the garden from time to time, she speaks fondly about her family and her siblings. Sandra feels that the dark cloud has gone, and the sun is shining through! all thanks to a simple phone call.
Our volunteer Fiona spoke to Martha today a week after she was referred to Karen from RotherFed’s Making Our Money Go Further Project. Martha was over the moon with all the help Rotherfed had been able to offer her. Last week she was referred to MOMGF after she disclosed during a friendship call that she was really worried about her finances and the rising cost of living. She was in a real anxious state. Karen called her promptly and was able to offer some help and also referred her on to Citizens Advice who have helped to get her money situation under control, this was all done in just 3 days. She is now due a large council tax rebate and her gas and electric bills have been lowered.
When Fiona rang her today, she informed me of everything that Karen and Anne from citizen’s advice have done for her, she was so happy with everything we have done to help her, she said a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders and she’s now in a position where she isn’t scared of using her gas and electric anymore. She stated that the volunteer was a “god send” and couldn’t imagine where she would have turned if it wasn’t for the calls.
She said, “if my knees and elbows were up to it I would be doing cartwheels up and down the street”.
Our volunteer reported that Martha spent over half an hour on the phone singing everyone’s praises saying if our volunteer hadn’t suggested referring her to the Money Management team then she would be in an awful situation with her money and wondering how she would make ends meet. Now she feels secure in the knowledge that she is in a much better place with her money and isn’t scared of what the future holds.
Friendship calls continues to be in demand, 23 new referrals in June took our total referrals to 657. Out of the 657, 268 are council tenants. Our amazing volunteers, 36 of them at present with a further 7 pending, currently make calls to 168 active recipients and we continue to receive such positive feedback.
In the month of June 515 calls were made taking the total calls over the project to 11,714.
Calls are made to lonely and isolated residents in the Rotherham Borough, we receive referrals from many different professionals, including, RMBC, Social Prescribing, RDaSH, South Yorkshire Police & Red Cross. We welcome referrals from all sectors, self-referrals and family and friends can also refer in. The individuals on the project come from all different backgrounds, different ages, different races, and all genders. Subject to assessment we take adults over the age of 18 who, for whatever reason find themself isolated. Isolation doesn’t necessary mean living alone, some of our recipients have young children and no other adult company, others have a house full but for personal reasons need the friendship calls to help them combat the loneliness they feel. Partnership working with Rotherfed projects such as Energy Know How and Making Our Money Go Further, ensures that recipients can access the services to get them the help and advise they need. Close links with the social prescribing teams continues, this is a fantastic timely intervention which from time to time enables us to get the right support, including medical support. The project/service we offer is called ‘Friendship Calls’ and 90% of the time this is the case, but as ever our volunteers and staff team will always help and assist often going the extra mile to help the recipients.
Volunteers are a major part of our project, without them we simply do not have a service, all volunteers follow an induction and have access to further training to benefit both the project and their own personal development. This month 5 of our amazing friendship call volunteers joined us for Voluntary Action Rotherham’s Volunteer Walk, which is a celebration of volunteering in Rotherham. As a thank you we meet up for breakfast prior to the event and had a lovely get together.
“I have to say I’m really proud to volunteer with Rotherfed, it’s a great organisation.”
Vera has been on the service for a short while. She is a lovely lady who suffers from COPD so is unable to get out and about. She has the support of a family but with them not living local she gets lonely. On a recent call log from one of our volunteers there was a note from Vera herself asking the volunteer to pass on a message. Its simply said can you ask your manager to give me a call as I would like to provide feedback on the service. We gladly obliged, we called Vera and although she wasn’t feeling well, she really wanted to let us know how the service has changed her life and how the volunteer was a lifeline for her. She said the volunteer was like a tonic and she always felt better after speaking with her, said she really looks forward to the conversations because the volunteer is so positive.
Christine is a telephone befriending volunteer who had to stop volunteering with us due to ill health, she promised that as soon as she was better, she would return. True to her work after an 8-month break Christine contacted us out of the blue saying she would like to return to making the calls. Naturally we were over the moon, when we asked what made her decide to come back, she said “There is nothing more rewarding than giving back and making a difference in the lives of people in the Rotherham community” she then went on to explain that talking to a stranger can help both the caller and the recipient and that it had a positive impact and improved her own mental health.
Terry is a wonderful chap that lives alone and is quite isolated as there are problems around the accommodation he lives in. When we first assessed him he said that nobody would want to talk to him because he was boring! Terry has been matched with different volunteers but recently has struck up a friendship with Nina, Nina has helped Terry much, even getting help to him following a personal situation. She convinced him to attend a recent coffee morning, they met face to face and the volunteer also helped Terry with some documents he had brought in. Previous to this Terry had not been out of his flat, was very anxious and wouldn’t have contemplated attending if it wasn’t for Nina. Since the initial meet they have met up again at a coffee morning and wow, the difference in Terry was there for everyone to see, full off smiles, came straight into the event, no hesitation. Was happy to chat to everyone. He is now thinking of venturing to the snooker hall he used to visit pre lockdown.
Jamie was referred to us after it was noticed that he visited the local supermarket on a daily basis just for company. Covid and isolation had left him with severe anxiety. Jamie lives on his own and found lockdown especially hard as he doesn’t like to be alone.
We spoke with Jamie and invited him along to events that we were holding. This took lots of coaxing as although quite confident, lockdown had left Jamie suffering with panic attacks, which was quite debilitating for him. He did manage to get to one of our coffee mornings and from then going forward there was no stopping him.
Whilst panic attacks are still part of everyday life for Jamie, we have been able to reason with him and continue to find solutions to enable him to attend events, to get him out from those four walls that have trapped him for so long. We established that his driving is starting to cause him anxiety so have provided him with ideas such as using door to door or taxi’s every now and then.
Jamie is very rarely in now, he sings in a choir in Sheffield, often singing solo male parts, he has a number of friends that he visits and supports, and he never misses a coffee morning, where he really enjoys a chat. Things have been hard for Jamie and it’s sad to see how his mental health declined during the pandemic, but with interventions we have seen a significant improvement and we continue to support Jamie with whatever hurdles he faces.
Andrew was our very first referral to the service back in April 2020 just at the start of the first lockdown. The initial referral said he was isolated and shielding and had been for 6 weeks. He likes fishing and watching history programmes on TV. He just needs a friendly voice to talk to.
Our volunteer Terry has called Andrew every two weeks for a chat for the past 2 years now, Andrew very rarely misses a call. They chat about all sorts often picking up where they left off the time before. They both were miners so have some common ground.
Andrew is able to get out and about a little more, and he goes to his daughters sometimes for lunch. He still appreciates and needs the chat with Terry as he doesn’t have anyone else during the day.
Again, the service has provided a lifeline, who would have thought that the pandemic would have carried on for so long with people like Andrew shielding for over 12 months.
Volunteers are amazing, whilst we cannot go into too many details in this case study, I would like to highlight what a difference our volunteers make.
Our volunteers between them talk to on average 150 people a week, these are purely friendship calls but sometimes things come up in conversation that are ‘not quite right’. We have things in place to ensure if there is something that does transpire following the call that the volunteer knows exactly what to do. Our volunteers know not to investigate or try to “fix” anything but know if their senses are telling them something is amiss what they need to do.
We had a call from a volunteer saying she was worried about a recipient as he wasn’t answering which was unusual, she kept trying and this went on for a few weeks. As this was highly unusual we put things in place to try and contact him by other means. Eventually the volunteer managed to speak to Tyler who informed her there had been an incident that had left him isolated in his accommodation, unable to leave the house and very frightened, he wasn’t answering the phone or door, his mental health was on the decline.
Our volunteer reported this straight in and highlighted her concerns. We contacted the appropriate channels and the outcome was that he got support from social services to start and sort the situation. I hate to think what might have happened if we hadn’t been involved.
Klive lives with the debilitating illness fibromyalgia, which can really affect his day-to-day life and activities, the condition is little known in men so additional pressure is added, as others don’t always understand. On a bad day he may not even answer the phone, so we ensure our volunteers are aware of this. Klive loves to chat to anyone and really enjoys the calls. He still has good and bad days but finds the conversations with volunteers a tonic, and he says it takes his mind off his flare ups and enables him to think about other things for a short while.
