1 May 2024

“Signposting people into activities that by default create befriending has been far more successful for us and the wider community than doing one on one befriending.”

Thank you to all of you who took part in the conversation on 1 May 2024. As always there were some great questions and interesting ideas shared. Here are the highlights:

Some of the great projects you already have

• Council project working with local hospital supporting people after discharge from hospital.
• Council project working with social prescribers and health practitioners. The project only started last July but although the numbers are small, they can already see the positive impact that the befriending service has had. The impact is being measured with questionnaires and conversations with individuals.
• A befriending scheme at a Hospice is so popular that they have had to suspend any further recruitment for the time being. Patients look forward to the visits and some volunteers go above and beyond by staying longer than the allocated two hours.
• A CIC and subsidiary of an NHS Trust have a vocational programme where they support people back from mental health, a recovery programme to get people back into work or education and an End-of-Life care service.
• A community project that tackles loneliness with volunteers accompanying people to an activity until they gain enough confidence to go on their own.
• A Trust is working in partnership on a community-based art therapy role
• In another Trust a volunteer runs a website Medley – Music, art and nature for wellbeing and leads a weekly arts group.
• A community library service where volunteers take books out to people's homes and care homes.
• During the pandemic one organisation delivered art packs into residents' homes. This created some interesting outcomes including grandparents sitting around the table with grandchildren doing creative activities.
• Volunteer lead healthy activities. This can include walking and activities relative to certain health conditions.
• Home Treatment. Volunteers accompany a staff member to assist with various activities.
• A local golf club recently hosted a Bingo event for one organisation.

Keeping volunteers safe and making sure that they understand the boundaries without damaging the passion that they have for what they are doing can be difficult.

Here are a few comments from the discussion: -

• Worse case scenarios often never happen.
• Positive natural friendships can be formed from some of the matches so sometimes there can be a case for more flexibility and not being as cautious.
• As a rule, volunteers should not give the person their personal telephone/mobile numbers or become friends on Facebook.
• Use a buddy system where the companion/volunteer lets a buddy know when they are visiting a patient and when they leave. If the buddy doesn’t receive a message to say that they have left at an allocated time the buddy can then contact the organisation.
• Most volunteers will have a lifetime of risk assessment behind them.
• Three key boundaries: no medication, no manual handling and no personal care.
• Patients who are within the last year of life need volunteers to be authentic.
• A staff member makes the initial visit and does a risk assessment. The client/patient signs an agreement making it clear what expectations are boundaries are and to agree that a volunteer can go into their home.

Challenges

• One of the biggest challenges is being able to identify complex discharges on the patient's admission to hospital. If these could be identified on admission there is time to put things into place so that everything is ready for the patient once they are fit enough to be discharged. One organisation is trying to get a simple tick box added to the admission form.
• Identifying patients who would benefit from a welfare phone call after discharge. There is a value in volunteers being able to meet the patient face-to-face before they go home. If they haven’t met the volunteer, they are more likely to decline the offer.
• Some discharged patients may have mental health issues, so there was a discussion in one group around extra training and how to manage inappropriate referrals. One organisation had found that some volunteers felt that after a year in the role they couldn’t carry on anymore as some were going home and worrying about people they had spoken to.

Useful Links

• Telephone Befriender: Volunteer Confidentiality Agreement
• Telephone Befriending Guide
• A wide range of volunteer role descriptions can be found in the Volunteer Role Library