A service that is helping reach out to the lonely and housebound is appealing for more volunteers.
Silver Talk, run by North-East housing association Isos, needs more volunteer call handlers to join its nine-strong team which keeps in regular, weekly contact with elderly tenants.
Operating from Isos’s offices in Burn Lane, Hexham, the free and confidential befriending service is available to tenants across Northumberland, who can apply to receive one or more calls per week.
Set up just a year ago, it is now accessed by 19 users, but Isos Supported Housing team leader, Lindsay Warren, is hoping that with more volunteers on board it could reach many more.
Lindsay said: “Older people can become very isolated, particularly if they live in some of Northumberland’s smaller, more rural communities.
“This service is all about trying to prevent that in a very simple way – with a phone call.
“Our volunteers do a fantastic job and we would love to be able to reach more people, particularly in the run-up to Christmas and into the new year. This can be a difficult and lonely time for some, when a service like this can be a real lifeline.”
Volunteer call handler, Joan Shaw, knows first-hand the benefits of the service. A former GPO telephonist, she has been volunteering with Silver Talk since June last year.
Like all volunteers she underwent training prior to joining the befriending line and is now in regular, weekly contact with three elderly women, one of whom is blind.
Joan said: “They always say they look forward to the calls and I feel like they do get something out of it.
“The first time I spoke to the resident who is blind she said she was very nervous about using the service, but I told her a little bit about myself and we soon got chatting. Now, we talk about all sorts of things.”
Joan added: “I became interested in volunteering because I thought that, hopefully, it would help someone. That was the whole idea – that by just chatting to someone, you could lighten their day for half an hour, once a week and it would be something for them to look forward to.”
In October, Joan attended a coffee morning for volunteers and service users at The Manors, Isos’s Extra Care scheme in Prudhoe, where she was able to meet the women she’s been chatting to every week for over a year.
It was the first time they had come face to face and an opportunity to get to know each other better.
Joan said: “It was a lovely occasion and so nice to actually meet them and put faces to the voices.”
Anyone interested in volunteering with the Silver Talk service should contact the Supported Housing Older Persons team on Tel. (0300) 300 1505.
Volunteer call handlers are fully trained and complete a maximum of three hours a week manning the phones. All sessions are supervised and Isos covers all travel costs to and from its Hexham offices.
Tenants, aged 60 and over, who would like to sign up to receive a call from the Silver Talk service can call the same number to register their interest. The service is only open to Isos tenants.