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.”
