Telephone befriending service to launch

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A FREE telephone befriending service for more than 2,000 Your Housing Group tenants living in Cheshire, called Silver Talk, is to be launched next Thursday, February 5.
A team of 10 specially trained volunteers have been recruited, all Your Housing Group tenants, to run the service which will be based at St Paul’s Court Sheltered Scheme on Bewsey Road in Warrington.
This is the second Silver Talk service in the North West and follows the success of the Merseyside initiative that launched by Warrington based Your Housing Group in April last year. Designed to combat loneliness, volunteers will call fellow tenants who have signed up to the service every Thursday and offer help, support and a listening ear.
Volunteers will spend up to half an hour on each call and will make notes so when they next ring they are able to pick up the conversation from the previous week and check how medical appointments or family visits went.
Your Housing Group’s Community Projects Manager, Andrew Edwards said: “We believe it matters to natter. To get a call every week to keep in touch and make sure everything is alright can make a real difference to some people’s lives if they live alone or perhaps caring for someone with dementia . Some people just fancy a chat and others need specific advice. We will also take referrals from friends and neighbours as long as they know we’re going to be calling.”
One of the new Silver Talk volunteers for the Cheshire service, Dot Brown, who lives in a Your Housing Group property and is Chair of Your Housing Group’s Health and Wellbeing Champions Panel explained why she has got involved: “I am a trained counsellor and did similar work for a number of years prior to my early retirement. This is an opportunity to do something with the skills I have, to benefit older and vulnerable people in the local community.”
The service, which starts on 5 February, has been set up for Your Housing Group tenants who are over 55 and live in Cheshire.
Pictured: Silver Talk volunteers Mandy France from Birchwood, Jacquiline Booth, Your Housing Group Scheme Manager at St Paul’s Court and Dorothy Richards from Warrington


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Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.

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