National Befriending Week
Published on 03 November 2020 04:37 PM
This week Age UK Wakefield District celebrate National Befriending Week.
This week as we celebrate National Befriending Week we have a chance to celebrate the wonderful work our volunteer’s carryout Befriending lonely and isolated clients across the district. I would like to pass on my thanks to everyone who volunteers across the Befriending Service (and this includes 5 members of our staff who also volunteer as Befrienders)
Here are some facts for you about our Befriending Service
- The has been around for 25 years, it has stood the test of time and is a highly valued and much needed part of our organisation.
- In March 2020 we were successful in receiving funding to support the service from The Henry Smith Charity. This funding will help us to build and support 365 Befriending relationships over the course of the next 3 years.
- Today we have 100 clients all receiving weekly telephone calls from our volunteer Befrienders.
- Our youngest volunteer Befriender is 18 year old Bradley Dunne, our oldest volunteer Befriender is 94 year old Margaret Morgan.
- The Befriending service will accept referrals from anyone aged 50+
- Home visit Befriending is the most popular role that Volunteers want to become involved in
- By September this year we had received 143 referrals into the Befriending Service that’s a 22% increase on last year’s total number of referrals
- When we first went into lockdown this year 13 of our volunteer befrienders stepped up to take on extra clients to help with the demand in our service, some of them were calling an extra 2 or 3 clients a week.
- Most popular age band for service users is 75-84.
- Currently our longest running Befriending relationship is 7 years.
- Surprisingly the majority of our Volunteer Befrienders work full time.
- Most popular area in the district that we recruit Volunteer Befrienders is WF4.
- Hardest area to recruit Volunteer Befrienders in the district is WF11.
- Volunteers report that they personally benefit from carrying out this role, increasing their own social contacts, learning new skills, feeling like they are making a difference, giving back to their community.
Here is some feedback from some of our service users:
- “Those weekly phone calls are making a big difference to me, I don’t speak to many people as I cannot go out, Graeme is a wonderful gentleman, he is so much fun to talk to, I really look forward to his calls.”
- “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, my friend rings me every Saturday at 2pm, we speak for an hour every week, I love hearing her voice and enjoy our conversations.”
- “I am really pleased with the telephone calls, I get on really well with Christine, I enjoy her chats and we laugh a lot. I am thinking of becoming a telephone befriender due to Christine calling me.”
- “My Befriender makes me laugh and brightens my day. Gives me new things to think about and we talk about what is happening in the world. Stops me being isolated and makes me more aware of other people. I would be sorry to lose my befriender.”
- “Lockdown has been difficult, I’ve not had many visitors, or many conversations. You matched me with young Emma, I get on very well with her, she calls me every week. To say she is much younger than me, we still laugh and have a lot in common”
More information on our Befriending Service
Tracey Shaw- Volunteering and Befriending Services Manager