Key facts
Area: South West
Grant recipient: MHA – Camborne and Redruth Live at Home Scheme
Programme: Reaching Communities
Date of award: November 2008
Amount awarded: £156,187
Live at Home is a branch of Methodist Homes for the Aged (MHA), they aim to improve the quality of life of those over 60 years old and living within North Kerrier (Camborne, Redruth and Illogan) in Cornwall.
Live at Home enable older people to retain their independence and remain in their own home, reduce their isolation and loneliness by encouraging social inclusion, improve their physical health and well-being by building confidence and self-esteem through the development of their social skills. The project also help and support older people to access statutory and community services through their signposting/advocacy, they also encourage BME older people to participate within their community which helps them feel more included.
The project is run with the help of volunteers and a small project staff team who undertake a range of support activities to help socially excluded older people, some are housebound. One of the schemes they run that support isolation is the one-to-one befriending service. This is where a volunteer visits a beneficiary in their own home once a week, the older person often looking forward to their visit. The volunteers say that they enjoy listening to their stories of past times and that they get satisfaction from knowing that they have helped someone feel a little bit less lonely.
Once a month they run a Sunday lunch scheme, where they try and meet at a different place every month, the older people enjoy this social and for some it can be the only time they go out and socialise.
Diane Bruford, manager of Camborne and Redruth Live at Home Scheme says “At Live at Home we are helping to reduce isolation and prevent older people from going into care homes. We often hear that without our schemes some older people just wouldn’t go out, we have one lady who comes to our monthly Sunday lunch and it’s the only time she goes out. The Big Lottery funding has helped us support and reduce isolation in the older person and without the funding we wouldn’t be able to do all the schemes and there’s a possibility we wouldn’t be here.”
Other activities that are part of the scheme are: a telephone support service, regular coffee mornings (for which a nominal charge is made to cover expenses) and other social functions, including gentle exercise sessions and monthly bus outings (such as visits to historic properties and gardens, shopping trips, theatre visits and to other places of interest).
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