Friendship Calls Participant – Jayne

Jayne was referred to our project in December 2020, she was really struggling after losing her mum unexpectedly to Covid-19 in May of that year. Jayne was unable to attend her mum’s funeral due to own ill health and because she was shielding.

Jayne spoke with different volunteers but it was when she spoke with one of our students that SKYPE was mentioned. This was facilitated and the student volunteer set up a private email account for the specific purpose of calling Jayne.  Calls often lasted over an hour with lots of laughter. Unfortunately when the student left to go to Uni we had to put Jayne back to the calls only, whilst we found another volunteer who was comfortable with video calling.

Recently a new volunteer came through and she really wanted to take on the SKYPE call with Jayne, on the first call they spoke via video for over 2 hours. I did question this with the volunteer and she said it had felt like 2 minutes as the conversation and the laughs had flowed and the two of them felt like they had been friends forever. They have so much in common, especially the love of craft. Jayne is currently helping the volunteer get back into painting by offering help and advice on her work, being able to share on screen makes it all the better,  it really  is a two way thing and is improving the mental health of all parties. Next week is a paint along with Jayne advising the volunteers how to get best use out of oil paints she received for Christmas.