Oxford volunteer used her Samaritans skills to set-up her own community initiative during lockdown.
The day before the Coronavirus lockdown was announced Oxford Samaritans volunteer Del took a deep breath and set up a 'Telephone Tree' to befriend her local seniors during the difficult times that were clearly set to follow.
With the help of her daughter a village Facebook page was created to ask for volunteers and within 24 hours four groups and four branches had been organised for their Telephone Tree; each with a coordinator and half a dozen other volunteers.
I could not be doing this if I was not so thoroughly trained and comfortable as a Samaritan. Thank you all in our wonderful Samaritan Community.
Del
Every one of the seniors identified was spoken to personally to confirm that they were happy and consented to be on the Telephone Tree mini database. The Telephone Tree community group asked if they would like to receive a friendly call a couple of times a week. They were asked if they were alone, if they had family nearby, if they had a monitor, and if they had the internet: almost 100% were without the internet, and therefore considerably more isolated from information and support than others in society.
By day two of the lockdown the Telephone Tree was operational and many more volunteers came forward offering support in the shape of shopping, running errands, birthday flower deliveries or if anyone was in particular need.
Thanks to Del's volunteering experiences she felt able to give her telephone volunteers a crash course about confidentiality and was able to act as an available point of contact for escalation of any issues of concern and to coordinate any requests.
The Telephone Tree is a non-Samaritans community project set-up by an Oxford Samaritans volunteer to support senior residents during lockdown.
Del shared this story of the Telephone Tree initiative with her colleagues at the Oxford Samaritans where she is a volunteer and said “I could not be doing this if I was not so thoroughly trained and comfortable as a Samaritan. Thank you all in our wonderful Samaritan Community. I bet you [fellow Samaritans volunteers] are all out there, all over the UK, using your Sam skills in a multitude of ways. Love to you all.”
Now into week ten, the Telephone Tree is a well oiled machine, its coordinators have been briefed every week and information cascaded or escalated as needed. Volunteers have said how much they have enjoyed making connections with others. It is fantastic to see how skills gained from volunteering can help other initiatives too, in this case helping the Telephone Tree to swiftly respond to problems and needs of those in need during unprecedented times of Covid-19 lockdown.
If you are interested to find out more about volunteering for Oxford Samaritans please click here.
(For clarity, the Telephone Tree is not affiliated to Oxford Samaritans.)