Friends Altogether in Rother / FAiR

FAiR aims to provide volunteering and opportunities for social engagement to support people of all ages who face the challenges of loneliness and isolation, through activities and services which develop ‘Friendship, Fellowship and Fun’ for them.
In addition to our ‘Telephone’ and ‘One to One' Befriending Service, we are building a collaborative network with existing local community organisations to provide a wider variety of opportunities, support and engagement.

Information for volunteers

Befriending is a specific type of support which aims to reduce isolation and improve the quality of life of older or vulnerable people in our Rother area. This is distinctly different from the provision of practical and functional support that professional and family carers may provide. Befriending supports service users’ wellbeing through human contact and facilitating access to a wider support and social network. Befriending also includes signposting and assisting users to engage with local community activities and services.

As a volunteer, you will be contributing the most valuable asset to our charity: your time. Whether an hour or more each week to directly connect with a member of our community, or two hours a month to help at our ‘tea and cake’ community socials, this support is vital in helping us create a support network and community engagement for our service users.

There are several types of volunteer befrienders with FAiR:
- Telephone befrienders – regularly calling their matched person for a chat and a catch-up, and report back on how they are.
- Home visit befrienders – regularly visiting their matched person in their home, to spend an hour or so chatting or joining in an activity, such as playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, craft activities.
- Community befrienders – joining one of our community activities and accompanying a befriendee at the event. This might be our Tilling, Tea and Cake social, or Men’s Shed activities or helping to build their confidence to join another community event, activity or club. Community befriending may also involve supporting service users to take the steps needed to build confidence, such as taking a walk, starting to socialise in the local area and finding out what is available in the community.

At FAiR we aim to carefully match volunteers with their befriendees, based on specific needs and opportunities, with safety and wellbeing as a priority. As a new service, our befriender volunteers are currently community-based, but this is being developed into 1:1 befriending as our service grows.