West Leeds: Volunteers needed to speak to elderly

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Photo by Andrew Withey

Volunteers are needed to speak to older people in West Leeds and across the city.

Leeds Older People’s Forum (LOPF) is looking for volunteers to help them evaluate their National Lottery funded Time to Shine (TTS) programme, and its effects on reducing  loneliness and social isolation in older people.

Over 55s are being offered the chance to train as peer evaluators, and visit groups all over the city throughout 2019.

Time to Shine needs volunteers who would be interested in visiting older people’s projects and talking with participants to find out how well the project has worked for them.

Hillary Wadsworth, Time to Shine programme manager, said:

“We are able to collect facts and figures, but also want to make sure we are not missing the important human aspects of people’s experiences.”

In West Leeds there are projects run by Armley Helping Hands, Bramley Elderly Action and Hollybush. They help older people to get out and make new friends in a variety of ways, by offering them new experiences, or simply giving them the confidence to join a group by going along with them for the first time.

The Time to Shine programme hopes that by using peer researchers – known as ‘Volunteer Listeners’ people will feel comfortable to share their experiences, good and bad.

Volunteers will receive training to do the role, and will then go and meet older people in different settings across Leeds.

The courses are on either 12 or 21 March, with ‘Listening’ planned to start in May.

To express an interest or find out more contact  Jessica on 0113 24416979 or e-mail Jessica@opforum.org.uk.

We encourage anyone living or working in West Leeds to use this website to tell their news. You can either use our Create an Article page, or e-mail us at news@westleedsdispatch.com.



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