Port Vale Foundation Trust are proud to be partnering up with the EFL trust and the Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as part of a major new programme to tackle loneliness among older people.
A recent study from the Office National Statistics (ONS) showed that 2.6 million adults reported that they felt lonely “often” or “always” whilst 7.4 million adults reported their well-being had been affected through their having felt lonely in the past seven days.
The ‘Tackling Loneliness Together’ programme is aimed at helping those Over 70, who are at risk of suffering from loneliness due to COVID 19 and will offer residents in Stoke on Trent the opportunity to connect with others in a variety of different ways.
Since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, PVFC Foundation have been making weekly contact through phone calls, delivering food and care packages weekly and distributing health and wellbeing activity packs door to door to those participants connected to the Club and the Foundations programmes.
The Tackling Loneliness Together project is an extension of all the hard work we have done and further partnerships include working with local councillors, key departments within Stoke on Trent City Council and community support groups to identify those most at risk.
Activities within the project will include:
Befriending calls– get matched up with another member of the community with similar interests for regular chats over the phone.
Virtual events– we’ll soon have a regular schedule of events from coffee mornings, quizzes, bingo, exercise, yoga, there’s someone for everyone!
Intergenerational Pen Pals– talk about your week, your interests, and almost anything else with somebody from a different generation.
Garden Gate Conversations– our staff can come to your ‘garden gate’ and have a socially distanced conversation face to face about how you’re doing.
Activity packs– posted to you fortnightly and will include a selection of worksheets from sudoko, quizzes, exercises, colouring pages and wordsearches
If you’d be interested in any of the above activities we ask that you contact the Port Vale Foundation by phoning 01782 757066 or emailing Sarah.Minshall@Port-Vale.co.uk