Caring Callers will return this year and will run throughout December and January.
Recruited and supported by Fresh Visions senior programme, Intouch, our volunteers will be assisting our more vulnerable and older residents over the winter months, a time of year that can be difficult and lonely.
A number of Southern Housing contractors have volunteered to make welfare calls to offer additional support, as well as to lend a listening ear and provide some company.
Callers also seek feedback from residents, to help us co-create our services and focus on what matters most. They can also assist residents to develop confidence, gain new skills and make connections in their community.
Speaking of Caring Callers, residents who received calls said, “it’s nice to know that people care” and they were very “appreciative and grateful for the call.”
One of our volunteers who worked with us last year said, “I had some really nice long chats with a couple of people this morning, it was lovely to feel as though the call was very much appreciated.”
Fresh Visions is a registered charity, hosted and supported by Southern Housing.
It was founded in 2001 by a group of frontline housing workers in London. Day after day they were coming into contact with vulnerable young people on local estates who were asking for their help. Many were lonely, isolated and suffering in silence, living in chaotic households and frequently victims or witnesses of domestic abuse. With an absence of local services, they often had nowhere else to turn to.
Fresh Visions was set up to fill this gap in local support. Over the last 22 years the charity has helped transform the lives of hundreds of young people every year.