At this time of year, with Christmas fast approaching, there are many reminders like television and radio adverts, about reaching out to people who may be feeling lonely but for people living with sight loss, social isolation and loneliness can be a problem that extends long after Christmas is over and New Year’s resolutions have been made and broken.
Now, thanks to funding from the Thomas Pocklington Trust, local charity HERIB is hoping to help address such problems for local people who are blind or partially sighted with the introduction of a new Telephone Befriending Scheme to supplement its existing Home Visiting Service.
The idea is simple – to link people who would welcome a friendly phone call from a trained person with knowledge of, or personal experience of, sight loss. It aims to offer a social link on a personal and long term basis with regular calls being made by the volunteers for as long as they are welcomed.
“This new scheme will help us to link with people who might find it difficult to get to our centre or day groups,” explained Alison Stannard, Service Manager at HERIB. “Our existing team of Community Advice Officers currently cover the Hull and East Yorkshire area and between them they undertake more than 4,500 Home Visits every year.”
“Whilst we would love to be able to visit all our members regularly, the level of demand on our Community Advice Officers makes this impossible but they are out in the community and see first-hand how people can become isolated and can go days, even weeks without seeing or speaking to another person and subsequently they made us aware that there is a potential for significant demand for this type of service.”
As part of the project, the Thomas Pocklington Trust funded the employment of a visually impaired person as a Befriending Coordinator and Karen Dunderdale was recently appointed to this position. Part of Karen’s role will be to recruit volunteer telephone befrienders from the visually impaired community alongside other sighted volunteers to work under her guidance.
Befrienders will also, where appropriate, signpost and encourage the ‘befriendee’ to access and engage with some of HERIB’s other services including:
• Day Groups and leisure groups
• Assistive technology training utilising the adapted HERIB IT training suite
• Resource Centre and Mobile Resource Service providing awareness and training on low vision aids
• Community Advice Officer visits and Specialist Benefits Adviser appointments
The scheme will be available in the New Year and will be offered free of charge to anyone with sight loss in Hull and East Yorkshire. Anyone who thinks they, or someone they know, may benefit from this service should contact HERIB on 01482 342297
