Outreach Service – Home Visiting

- We try to make sure that the befriender lives near to the older person and that they have similar interests.
- We provide companionship (matching befriender and client)
- The face-to-face meetings between befriender and client have a focus on the person (companionship, empowerment, confidence) and social (engagement in beneficial community activities)
- It provides a link / medium between clients and other support networks / professionals.
- Volunteers are introduced to the older person by the coordinator.

Home visitor’s stories
Velma Dennis
Our befriending relationship has over the past year developed enormously. I look forward to seeing P and I know she looks forward to seeing me. She commented that she is very happy with our meetings and that she enjoys our conversations. We discuss family, daily news, fashion, food, how it was when P was a girl, when her children were young and her husband was around. We talk about my work and what I do. In fact we talk about anything we feel like.
Abigail Johnsen and Margo Random
I got involved with the Furzedown Project after feeling a need to give something back to the local community and had heard about it through a friend. Clive interviewed me and soon had me matched up with an elderly woman called B. It soon proved that we were a good fit and over the next couple of months I developed a profound and wonderful friendship with her, one that I am extremely happy to have gained. It is a real joy to me and I hope it is the same for her. I was away travelling for a few months so I asked my Mum, Margo, to take over my role with B. She has then since developed her own relationship with B which has blossomed over the time I have been away! We now love to share the responsibility of visiting B, on alternate weeks or together, which I f
Katya Filipova
I joined Furzedown Project as a befriender after completing my degree, to gain some experience. Now, more than 18 months later I feel that this was the most rewarding thing I’ve done. I feel so connected to my client, an 88-year-old lady, and over time our relationship has become very strong. I lo