Category: Friendship Calls

Roy has been volunteering for us for about 5 weeks but has quickly established 3 calls a week, which he commits to with enthusiasm and gusto! He loves the fact he is able to empathise from his own mental health situation with others and give companionship where needed.

Here are a few quotes –

“I really enjoyed my chat with Michael. We’re both sports nuts so we had loads to talk about. In football he’s Leeds United and I’m Barnsley so there was some very gentle ribbing both ways about that!”

“Smashing fella, he was on the phone for about 40 minutes and I barely got a word in! Joking aside, we had a really good chat about music and some of the gigs / concerts he went to when he was younger. Would love to speak to him again.”

“He got a bit upset at one point when we spoke about his family as he’s hardly seen his grandkids / great grandkids as he is effectively shielding due to COVID worries. We turned it around though and ended on a positive note.”

Sharon and I were on the phone for 51mins! We talked about the weather the state of the country and covid and how it’s affecting our lives in general. We talked about families and how she feels bereft about what has happened with her cousins since she moved north and their parents have died. They use to be really close but now nobody keeps in touch. She said all through her cancer treatment none of them contacted her, not even a card. The reason they use it is the distance even though they drive. I felt sad for her particularly when she said what really hurt was knowing that a cousin and her partner travelled to Leeds to visit his son and soon after her treatment she suggested they meet up in Leeds and her cousin refused.  We ended the call on a happier note laughing and joking about an incident that had really made her laugh!

Katie, a 54 year old lady was a self-referral to the friendship calls. When she first made contact on 13^th July, she was very tearful on the phone and extremely nervous. Katie is a victim of rape and domestic abuse, she had recently lost her father to cancer and was now dealing with the news that her mother was end of life with cancer as well. Although Katie informed that she is receiving counselling she admitted that it would take for her to come to terms with what has happened to her during the course of her life. She was very open and honest about the affect everything had had on her and how she was really struggling to cope. I asked her if she was getting any other support or help and she advised that she was not. It was decided that due to Katie been in an extremely vulnerable state, she would receive a call from Jane every Friday until one of our top volunteers was back off leave. This volunteer was chosen for Katie because of her expertise in this field and we strongly felt that Katie would get a lot of benefit from the support of this volunteer. In the interim, Katie was advised to contact her GP and request a referral to her GP’s link worker at social prescribing who would be able to assist her in moving forward. A direct link was also given to Katie to enable her to contact the link worker directly who would then ring her back. Katie has her first call with her new volunteer week commencing 26^th July.

Susan came to us as a referral in February. Susan is a young Asian lady who had escaped a very abusive marriage. Susan was ostracised by her family and her community because of proceeding with ending the marriage. She lives on her own, does not go out and wishes to keep to herself, although she does work, she does this from home. Susan had suffered a tremendous amount of abuse and found it very hard to trust people.

She was paired with a volunteer and she has started to regain her confidence, and because of the continued friendship calls that have built up her confidence, she has now started studying again. She has now accepted counselling , which she previously refused. Susan now sees the counciling as the way forward for her to be able to deal with what has happened and she has been referred to an Asian counselling service that specialises in cases like Susan. She attributes her ability to move forward from the confidence she has obtained since receiving the friendship calls.

Leanne came to us in February from Social Prescribing. She suffers with multiple sclerosis and had refused any help. She was also caring for her poorly mum. Her mum recently passed away and Leanne was unable to attend the funeral as she had to isolate waiting for a hip operation. She has a high risk of falls but still drives. She was out and about one day and her leg froze and she had a small accident and because of this her hip operation was brought forward. Leanne was due to have her second Covid jab and as she was going into hospital she was not be able to attend the jab and was really panicked about it.

The volunteer, who also volunteers as a vaccine clinic got her booked in where she volunteers, arranged transport to get her there and volunteer and participant got to meet face to face and Leanne managed to get her second jab thanks to the extended work her volunteer. Leanne got her hip operation, and is home recovering well and has now also accepted that she needs some care.

Jade called Emily who was quite distressed that it had been 12 weeks since her covid injection and she hadn’t heard anything. This was really worrying for her.

Having gained consent and speaking with Rotherham Federation staff Jade was able to make some calls and it was arranged that the Covid Call Centre would ring Emily and book her appointment for the next day, they would be sensitive to her request as they usually wouldn’t go to these lengths.

Jade went above and beyond to assist Emily and I am sure thanks will be made in due course. Jade said it was nothing and she is just happy she was able to help , Jade followed all our protocols and was simply amazing.

Chelsea approached us upon reaching her 18th birthday during March 2021. She had previously attended a talk at Thomas Rotherham College on how to become a friendship call volunteer but because of lockdown could not enrol back in November due to being under the age of 18. Chelsea started her first calls on 22nd March 2021 and has since shown so much potential as a young volunteer. She has been very consistent, taken on any extra calls when needed. During this month, she had been asked to take an elderly lady called Maureen on permanently as her usual volunteer had gone off sick. They immediately formed a very strong bond. Chelsea approached me to ask if she would be able to Skype Maureen in the future. After some discussion, Chelsea set up a new email account so that she could protect her personal details and will now proceed using Skype calls to Maureen (Maureen is very good on Skype). I asked Chelsea if she would be willing to become our first Digital Champion Volunteer and she has agreed, she would be supporting people with their preferred choice of social media, and she will be going out and about in the community after lockdown training both tenant voice and friendship volunteers as well as any participants that may be interested. Further to this, Chelsea is a very well-spoken young lady who also volunteers for St Johns Ambulance, and she has also agreed to become an ambassador for any other young volunteers or students wishing to become volunteers. We have reported back to Thomas Rotherham College on how Chelsea is expanding her role with us. She is an amazing young lady.

Mary came to us as a referral from Social Prescribing in September 2020. This lady had not been very well and although active had found that her life had changed since lockdown and she had then become ill. Mary enjoys cooking and reading books and during the initial stages of her being with us she had been receiving calls from staff members up until end of January. In February she was then paired with volunteer Chantelle and they immediately began to build a rapport with conversations lasting sometimes in excess of an hour and a half. They had become firm friends over the weeks following. Social Prescribing did a follow up with Mary in April and we received an email from the referrer ‘Just wanted to let you know that I got some lovely feedback from a patient who Chantelle calls. She is very much enjoying her calls.’ This highlights how important the calls are for those receiving them and Mary never misses a call.

Mia was referred to us back in November from one of the housing coordinators. Mia suffers with bipolar, poor physical health and various other mental illnesses. Mia was very reluctant to become part of the service at first until she was paired with a young volunteer. It was during this week that I had cause to have to ring Mia and after asking her how she feels about the service this is what she had to say, and she also states that she would be very willing to talk to anybody about what the calls mean to her,

‘These calls have changed my life, the volunteer goes over and above what is required of her and even called me over the Christmas period and on Christmas day. This meant so much to me as I was on my own. She has literally turned my life around and even though I do suffer with bipolar I find that the calls ease me when I am in a depressive mood and really life me up. I cannot wait to get the call every week and I cannot thank you enough for giving me my volunteer, as I said it has changed my life and I now feel a lot more optimistic than I have ever done, so that you Rotherfed and that you to the volunteer, you just keep up the good work’

Emily came to us as a referral in October. She had been through very difficult times. She had recently lost her partner who had been abusive and had to come to terms with a lot of things. This abuse had also had in impact on her relationship with her family and despite only being in her early 60’s found herself very much alone. In November we had a new student come on board from Leeds Beckett University who from the first call found she got on really well with Emily and requested that she phones Emily every week as part of her call rota. This relationship had developed and in between Christmas and New Year, the volunteer took it upon herself to call Emily during this period even though she did not need to do so. I contacted Emily this week, and her report back to me on how the calls from the volunteer were going, was very emotional. She advised that this is the one thing that is constant in her life and knowing that she gets a phone call every week keeps her going and gives her something to look forward to. She informed me that she has found that her anxiety and depression has decreased, and she now feels optimistic for the future and could not thank me enough for her very valued calls.