Do you have some time to spare to support local older people?

Loneliness amongst older people is on the increase as the population ages. Age UK estimates that 1.2 million older people nationally are chronically lonely. Further research from the charity at the local level suggests that people aged 65+ living in some of the communities around the Devizes area are at medium to high risk of becoming lonely. People can feel lonely even if they have contact with others as loneliness is about quality, not quantity, of contact. A new client, Ira, is visited by carers 3 times a day, a nurse several times a week and a family member at least daily but says she still feels lonely because no one is connecting with her at a social level. Imagine how she would feel if no-one visited at all!

Age UK Wiltshire, as a local independent charity, can provide support to her to address this through some of our services such as telephone befriending or our community support team. However, we can’t provide this support without an army of volunteers to help.

We are looking for more people from the local community to offer a few hours of their time so we can continue to provide friendship & support to older people.

Our current volunteering roles in the Salisbury area are:

Community Support Volunteer Visitors – visiting socially isolated older people at home with the aim of helping them reconnect with their community and develop new friendships

Home from Hospital volunteers to provide short-term practical support to people who have just returned home after a spell in hospital

Community or office based Advice Workers – visiting people at home to provide advice on benefits or to help them fill in forms or providing information or advice to the people who make contact with our office in Salisbury.

We’re also looking for knitters and crocheters who can help us knit or crochet little woolly hats for The Big Knit 218 campaign – The Big Knit 2018

More information about all our roles can be found on our website https://www.ageuk.org.uk/wiltshire/ or by calling our office on 01380 727767 or emailing us at volunteering@ageukwiltshire.org.uk

Whatever your reason for volunteering, we’d be delighted to hear from you.