Would you like to have a chat with someone on the phone and make a real difference to their day?

Since March, our Befriending volunteers have supported over 100 people in supportive telephone partnerships, ensuring they have regular contact with someone, have access to food and their medication and are not forgotten.

Our service users are often isolated and vulnerable at the best of times, living with anxiety and depression that has been compounded during the pandemic as vital support and activity has been restricted or removed.

We train people to have supportive conversations, to listen and be empathetic and we have robust procedures in place for when things aren’t going so well. This is such a difficult time but we want to be there for as many people as we can to let them know they are not alone and there is hope.

“We have wonderful conversations about books and what food we’ve eaten. Just normal everyday things which takes my mind off my own thoughts for a while. These weekly calls have been the highlight of my week and have kept me going. We quickly realised we have got things in common which have provided good conversation starters. I was quite worried at first as I struggle with social interaction but I need not have been as our chat flowed quite naturally and now I look forward to our weekly chats. I am so grateful to Bucks Mind for being creative and finding other ways to work in what are very challenging times.” Telephone Befriending service user

To find out more about Befriending, please click here.

To download our leaflet for Befriending volunteers, please click here.

If you would like to volunteer as a ‘telefriender’, you can download our volunteer application form here or contact Vicky Royal on 07930 801681 for more information.