Age UK Cheshire to Launch New and Improved Befriending Service

Published on 14 March 2018 11:56 AM

Age UK Cheshire’s Sharing Time Service has gone through a refocus and redesign to improve its service offering.

Sharing Time connects people and creates friendships to reduce social isolation and loneliness.

The new and improved befriending service will now include internet-based befriending, using applications such as Skype or FaceTime as well as the more traditional face to face befriending. It can also offer home visits to provide the IT support to help get people started online.

Amanda Hodgkinson, Wellbeing Services Manager at Age UK Cheshire commented: “We are really excited for the future of Sharing Time. The new service now has much more of a focus and will be looking specifically to support clients in Northwich, Ellesmere Port and surrounding rural areas, which have been identified as having areas with higher risks of loneliness.

We are now seeking volunteers who would like to be matched with an older person. It may be that you visit them for a chat once a week over a cup of tea, that you go out and experience new places together or that you simply provide regular phone calls. If you would be interested in making a difference to the life of an older person in Cheshire, then we would welcome you to get in touch to find out more.”

Sharing Time will launch in April 2018 and will replace the previous service which closed in 2017.