About loneliness

Loneliness is seen by many as one of the largest health concerns we face. It’s painful. It’s harmful to our bodies. It puts us at a greater risk of developing dementia, heart disease and depression. It’s so serious that it even shortens our life expectancy.

“It feels as if you’ve been dumped in the deep end – and there’s no one there to rescue you.”

For many older people, it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever had to cope with. People like you and I who have lived busy vibrant lives suddenly find themselves in an empty house where the silence is all-consuming. The TV becomes vitally important – just to add some noise. Days or weeks can go by with no need to use your voice. There’s no one to talk to.

A study by The Co-op and the British Red Cross reveals over 9 million people in the UK across all adult ages – more than the population of London – are either always or often lonely.
Research commissioned by Eden Project initiative The Big Lunch found that disconnected communities could be costing the UK economy £32 billion every year.

Our response

This has been a challenging year for The Link Visiting Scheme. Our charity spiked in growth by 800% as we responded to the needs of those who were shielding over the summer. The demand for our service continues and the number of referrals has quadrupled compared to this time last year.

Our focus is on promoting and enabling friendships in everything we do. When we receive a referral for someone in the grips of loneliness, we need to respond quickly, with sensitivity, kindness and skill.

We have developed a pathway that enables us to respond quickly to a referral and support the individual on their journey to establishing long term friendships and broadening social circles to interactive activities and events. We take people from isolation to a feeling of integration in their local community with local volunteers. And we don’t stop there. We are a launchpad to more social activities within the community with our partners in the Friendship Alliance. We welcome people to us who are despairing, and we get them on their feet again, feeling valued, significant and an important part of our community once more.

Link Express

We pride ourselves in matching volunteers to older people based on personality, location, hobbies and interests. We see friendships blossom, but we recognise that to do this takes time. People could wait for a number of weeks to find the right person, so we knew we had to do something to provide a quicker response when people were feeling the intense pain of loneliness. So, we developed Link Express, where we provide immediate friendship over the phone, using trained volunteers just for this particular stage. This also gives us time to effectively signpost on to other services if needed too.

One to one connections

This is the core of all that we do. What we crave for as humans, no matter what our age, and what has been brought into sharp focus for us this year, is our deep need and longing for connection. We long for authentic relationships where we can be vulnerable and sincere.

“Conversations matter. Long-form conversation matters even more. The world needs more nuance, understanding and perspective not more divisive 30 second sound bites.” - Rangan Chatterjee.

It’s what makes life worth living. We don’t need many relationships, it’s about quality, meaningful interaction. No matter if you are introverted, extroverted, on the spectrum, a loner or a party animal, we all need one or two people in our lives that can mourn when we mourn. Celebrate with us, listen when we feel anxious and be there for the mundane everyday aspects of life as well as the festivals and the special gatherings.

Older people, facing all the issues that come with growing older need friendship more than ever. Ageing is challenging. We need to be there to support and honour older people, not abandon them, and we need to celebrate friendship wherever we can. We do this face to face as much as possible and we encourage outings outside the house.

Where relationships may be tricky due to reasons such as dementia, anxiety or other complex needs, we have developed programmes to help volunteers build relationships. We do this with cognitive stimulation exercise or our Link to Nature project. Do reach out if you’d like to know more!

Friendship groups

We firmly believe one to one connection is the most effective way of alleviating social isolation. However, we recognise that it doesn’t necessarily lead to social integration within the wider community. We see this being achieved through Friendship Groups and community activities.

Friendship groups consist of up to 6 Link volunteers and Link friends who live near each other. Initially, volunteers are asked to organise social gatherings every month to be held in group members’ homes or Covid safe venues such as café’s and pubs. As friendships flourish, we anticipate that groups will meet more frequently and may choose to organise other social events independently of the Link Visiting Scheme. In this way older people benefit from new relationships with other older people living nearby, providing greater social contact, meaningful interaction and promoting well-being.

And there are wider benefits of Friendship groups for volunteers, the central team and other community support services:

Link volunteers get to know other volunteers and form informal support networks which they can use for advice and back up, giving them a greater sense of belonging and engagement.
As Friendship groups become increasingly autonomous and self-managing, members will need less first line support from the central team, freeing up our very stretched resources to focus on other older people with chronic or time-critical needs.
And we know that with greater well-being, comes less demand for other health and charitable support services in the community.

Activities and events

We organise a host of friendship friendly group activities where people in the grips of loneliness feel safe. We ensure a warm welcome, we facilitate a safe environment, ensuring conversations flow, people feel included have a chance to contribute and most importantly, have fun.

Our favourite activities include our weekly lunches in local pubs (Pie and Pint Club) and our Community Kitchen project on a Sunday, which is recognised as a particularly lonely day. Volunteers and older people gather on a Sunday to cook together and eat together in a family environment. We encourage volunteers to bring along their children or pets, and older people play an active role in helping with the meal.

We run our ‘Friends For Ages’ group where older people are invited to a local parent and toddler group and we break down the age barriers and then we run our monthly singalong group, crochet and board games sessions. All designed to encourage friendships, interaction, meaning and fun. We can’t wait to get back to it again when it’s safe to do so.

Christmas

Lastly, Christmas. The dreaded C word. So many people dread this season. Feelings of warm family gatherings only encourage this sense of aloneness and the world feels grey. We put a lot of effort into ensuring anyone on their own in Wokingham Borough has a warm welcome and a delicious hot lunch. We are overwhelmed with those keen to volunteer on the day itself and it’s the highlight of our year. This year, older people will get a knock on their door rather than a party invitation and will be spoiled with presents and a hot meal.

Changing lives with friendship

We are doing all that we can to attack this very serious issue of loneliness in our communities and we love what we do. We literally see lives transformed through the simple act of quality time, focused attention, a listening ear leading to meaningful friendships.

Could you support us?

We desperately need your support to help us continue the important work we’re doing.

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Isolation to Integration: Our Pathway