Care Merseyside have set up a New Intervention to adapt to the current crisis which will allow us to co-ordinate a community led/volunteer led approach to supporting the most vulnerable.
It’s a very simple two-pronged approach.
We have called it ‘Phone a Friend – You’ll Never walk Alone’.
Simply put – we will ask people to call those most vulnerable on a daily basis for a chat, catch up and help with any needs like dropping shopping off.
The volunteering in itself is good for health and well-being and will give purpose and focus to a community in fear and uncertainty.
We have identified up to 300 vulnerable people from our client cohort and will be spending the next week calling them and asking them would they wish to be supported by this service.
Each person will also be asked to take a Duke Social Isolation score which will show a baseline to how isolated they are and we will review the questions in a week or two to see if the volunteer system has helped them feel less isolated.
We have contacted local schools to offer their staff and pupils to get involved which will also provide enrichment activities for pupils to take part in while working from home such as letter writing skills and arts and crafts skills.
