We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded extension funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which will see our vital activities across Camden continue to the end of December 2021.
The funding will enable all our local delivery partners to continue providing their services, helping to tackle social isolation and loneliness among older people across the borough – activities which have been a lifeline to many during the Covid-19 restrictions.
Alongside supporting our local partners, we also plan to focus on five key areas over the coming year – outreach; connecting communities; warm welcome; under-served communities and work with men. We plan to:
· Find those who no-one knows through the work of our outreach team, which continues to evolve in response to government advice
· Motivate and support older people with the highest needs to overcome barriers to connect with activities, through one-to-one person-centred support offered by Community Connectors
· Offer a Warm Welcome – a model developed by the programme to support older people, especially those who have been socially isolated, to be ‘pulled’ into community activities
· Provide specialist provision for under-served communities, often referred to as ‘hard to reach’, through our projects working with the Bangladeshi, BAME and LGBT+ communities
· Reach out to older men, who are under-represented among our participants.
The funding is brilliant news for the many organisations and communities we work with across Camden. It is especially welcome as lots of plans have had to be put on hold this year. Activities such as yoga and crafts moved online, with older people across Camden supported to access the internet. Those not online received regular telephone calls, and local partners delivered vital medicine and groceries. Our outreach team organised pop-up events in parks to hand out facemasks and sanitiser, which saw them reach 200 of the borough’s most isolated people, some of whom were grieving alone following bereavement.
We’re looking forward to working together to reach and support even more older people through the difficult months ahead. We’ll be testing out new ways of working and will be sharing stories and learning through our reports and blogs.