Tackling loneliness in lockdown
How volunteers in Sussex kept in touch with isolated older people through the pandemic
In this guest blog Emily Kenward, Founder of befriending charity Time to Talk Befriending in Sussex, talks about how the charity kept in touch with isolated older people during the pandemic. The charity was able to respond to the increased demands of COVID-19 with the help of Independent Age’s grants funding programme.
“In 2013 we undertook research with older people to really find out what they felt was missing in the community. The number one issues, which came up again and again, was isolation. Older people told us that they feel largely invisible in their communities, with some not speaking to anyone for weeks or even months.
“In response we set up Time to Talk Befriending, to connect community volunteers of all ages with older neighbours experiencing loneliness. Since our foundation, the charity has gone from strength to strength, but the COVID-19 lockdown has had a huge impact, both on the way we provide our services, and the level of need there is in the community.
“Despite almost 8 years’ experience of providing older people led befriending activities to overcome overcoming loneliness, nothing could have prepared us for the effect the pandemic would have on older people in our communities.
“We normally receive referrals from professionals who have identified older people experiencing loneliness because they don’t have many existing social connections. The majority live alone, report at least one health condition at the point of referral and are aged 80 plus.
“Our model is relationship-centred, and our befriending services continue to be developed in response to the voice of older people and volunteers gathered through community consultations, surveys and regular reviews. As a result, we offer a range of inter-generational befriending activities enabling older people to choose the option which best suits them.
We continue to approach issues effecting older people in a fresh way, galvanising a whole community response. From young pre-schoolers and their families through to older people in retirement we have trained community volunteers to provide meaningful connections and befriending, matching generations together based on mutual hobbies and interests.
“During the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic referrals into our service for older people experiencing loneliness increased dramatically. Our volunteers would normally make face-to-face visits to the people they help but, due to the lockdown, befriending services had to move to being provided remotely. At the same time, many more people found themselves isolated and cut off from family and friends, meaning demand almost doubled, with extra resources needed to meet that new need.
“In April 2020 we opened our service into a new area in West Sussex to meet a need for long term befriending, and by June 2020 we had doubled in size supporting an additional 231 older people, needing an additional 218 volunteers within 4 months. By the end of December 2020, we were supporting 531 one-to-one telephone befriending matches between older people and community volunteers.
“With the need to expand services to meet this surge in demand, there was an acute need for increased support to ensure that we were providing a high-quality service to those that needed it. That’s where Independent Age comes in. We applied to the charity’s emergency grant to support our core funding when it was most desperately needed — not just for us as a charity, but for every one of the over 500 older people we help.
“Independent Age established the fund to help charities just like us, whose services were under increased demand due to the pandemic. Many of the normal ways in which smaller organisations like ours raise money were under real pressure because of lockdown restrictions, so the support from Independent Age was invaluable.
“Independent Age awarded us £15,000 towards our COVID relief efforts. Thanks to that financial boost, we were able to fund the increased number of DBS checks required as we recruited more volunteers, as well as give our volunteers extra training and enhanced support. We also had increase staff hours to meet demand, which the grant has made possible. All these facets of the service have allowed us to reach people who otherwise would have slipped through the cracks at a time when they needed our befriending service most.
“We are now supporting the largest number of older people and volunteers we have ever supported at one time, and our feedback data has shown that the service has been a vital lifeline for lonely people, and an enriching experience for our volunteers.
“Our in-house research captures how our scheme members found the lockdown difficult, with many feeling scared, stressed, depressed and just or fed up. This makes it all the more heartening to hear feedback on their experience of befriending, with one scheme member saying, “who knew that having an invisible friend could make me feel so much more fulfilled” and another saying their befriender “is great, young and cheers me up” and “has been one of my only social interactions” during the 2020 lockdowns.
“Volunteers also got a lot out of being part of the scheme. They regularly describe their befriending experience as being inspirational and life-changing but also fun. One 24-year-old befriender, who was paired with a 55-year-old member, said, “During lockdown, I have found befriending equally as important to me — we will remain friends now, even outside of TTTB!”
“We have learnt a huge amount from our experience during COVID-19 and the research undertaken with our members and volunteers. These findings will help to inform our service going forward. We also contributed to Independent Age’s Lessons from befriending in the time of Covid-19 report which should be of use to other services like ours around the country.
“Our greatest privilege since Time to Talk Befriending began in 2013 is witnessing first-hand how older people lives are positively transformed through the provision of befriending. Over the last 8 years we have trained hundreds of volunteers to help countless older people who would otherwise feel invisible and forgotten within society. But our most trying time, when we were most needed, was during the pandemic. Demand almost doubled overnight and the way we deliver our services had to change radically too. Without Independent Age’s support I don’t know if we would have been able to achieve as much as we did, and certainly many isolated people would not have got the help they needed.”
Take a read of the stories we have gathered from, Entelechy Arts and Haemochromatosis UK, two other organisations we funded. Find more on our Grants Fund.
