COVID-19

We know that pandemic restrictions worsened the isolation, loneliness, and mental wellbeing of people who are already isolated and sometimes suffering from mental health difficulties. During these periods we provided telephone befriending and other remote social contact. Team members made regular welfare and check-in phone calls to vulnerable older people, often at the time they would be attending their T&T group (such as the Happy Mondays social contact group, Stroke Club, or Visually Impaired Group). These calls were crucial, not just to deal with practical issues, but to show there was someone who cares and was there to listen. We also provided well-received activity packs to support older and isolated people.

Our volunteers provided collections and delivery of important items to isolated and housebound people during lockdowns. They also helped people get to vital hospital appointments, collected prescriptions, and pitched in with practical care support for a wide range of people in need.

Our children and families support is vital. We continue to collaborate with food banks and other voluntary and community sector partners in Southwark, to get essential items to those families and others in need. During periods when children have been at home full-time, we have created fun activity packs for them – we know what a stressful and uncertain time this has been, and continues to be, for kids as well as adults.

During the height of the pandemic we  mobilised our existing pool of over 100 volunteers, and we were delighted and humbled by a huge volume of new volunteering applications – up to 200. We set up many new telephone befriending matches to keep our community connected, and to battle the isolation that this crisis  created for many of us.