Friendship Calls Participant – Bella

Bella was referred to the friendship calls project on 25th January 2022 by one of the senior clinic nurses and Ferham clinic. Bella suffers with paranoid schizophrenia with hallucinations about spiders and shadows. She also suffers with social anxiety and cannot venture out alone so always has a friend that needs to go with her. Jane did the original assessment and Bella was unsure as to whether the friendship calls service would benefit her as she felt that no one would understand her condition.

After discussion with volunteer Donna, it was agreed that Donna would call Bella once a week to see how things progressed. Donna has the experience to be able to ensure that Bella does not wander out of the boundaries of the service as she did start to ring Jane and leaving numerous messages after hours for someone to ring her back. Jane explained that the service was not a support nor advice service and that the volunteer’s phone number cannot be shared with her and that she would only be getting one call a week. This has now settled down, and Donna and Bella have reached an understanding with Bella really starting to open up and chat to Donna on their weekly calls. Donna has been calling Bella regularly now for the last 4 weeks.