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Befriending
​Care Home Residents

We mobilise trained volunteers to come alongside care home residents, doing activities together that build companionship.
Research shows that care home residents are twice as likely to feel severely lonely as older people living at home.

How it works

We recruit and train volunteers to offer friendship and support to older residents in care homes. 

Support for care home residents includes befriending, helping older people with their digital skills to enable them stay connected with their family, reading aloud to the visually impaired, going for a walk with a resident, playing board games and so on. The list is endless - anything that a resident enjoys doing that our volunteers can help facilitate.

All our volunteers are DBS checked and have been through our vetting processes and training programme.

Where we operate

We have regional areas where our Project Co-ordinators mobilise volunteers to bring joy and companionship to care home residents across those areas - currently Richmond upon Thames, the Isle of Wight, Hampshire and West Sussex. Click on an image to visit that area's page. 
We also encourage churches to adopt their local care home, and offer resources and training in helpful, practical ways churches can come alongside a care home. If you are interested in growing your church's connection with your local care home, please follow the button below to find out more. 

Creative  Connections

We  love to mobilise local communities to creatively connect with their local care home in other ways too:

"I can not speak highly enough about your service. The quality of the people your organisation sends to me is excellent."

- A CARE HOME MANAGER

Do you run church services in care homes?

We don't believe in reinventing the wheel and we also think that it's great to share ideas and resources.
We have put together a bank of care home service plans and ideas for you to adapt to your situation. 

If you run services in care homes and have tried and tested service plans that you are happy to share with others, please do email them to us and we will add them to this bank. All details ientifying particular care homes or organisers will be deleted. We want this to be a free resource that people can use and adapt, and we hope that it will be a blessing to you.

To access the bank please complete the form below and you will be redirected to a webpage with the link.

If for any reason you struggle with the form, or accessing the service plans, please drop Tina an email and she will send you the link.
Connecting Care Home residents and their loved ones using Alexa
Alexa devices can be a great way to help residents and their relatives stay connected, especially when visiting is restricted, or relatives live at a distance. When the resident has an Alexa speaker set up in their room a relative can use it like a hands free phone and "drop in" on the resident to have a chat.

This is particularly helpful for residents who might struggle with using a phone, or if relatives are having to ring on the care home phone to get in touch. Once the Alexa is set up it does not require any supervision from staff, freeing up staff time, and helping relatives to stay connected with ease.

Do you need help setting up an Alexa?

We have worked in partnership with an organisation called Aurisbuddies to help set up Alexa in care homes. Have a look at their website to see how they might be able to help you. Or read about the pilot project we ran together on the Isle of Wight.

Are you a Christian working in the care sector?

You might be interested to connect with Christians in Care

Hymns for Care Homes

The wonderful Amy Faith Morley has recorded some well known hymns that can be used in care homes. They are available on spotify on the link below.
A free CD is also available to send to Care Homes.
Please email Tina for more information

Hymn Lyrics

£0.00
Add to basket
A FREE pdf of the most well known hymns from Amy's CD in large print.

Click "Add to basket" and you will be able to check out WITHOUT payment.

There are about 12,500 care homes for older people across the UK, and about 50,000 churches. We'd love to see each care home adopted by a local church with trained volunteers befriending residents. 

Get in touch

Need a volunteer?

Do you know a someone who would benefit from a visitor?

Want to volunteer

Would you like to befriend a care home resident?

Have a question

Any other questions you want to ask us?