We’re calling on businesses to do their bit for social action
We’re urging businesses in Southampton to do their bit for corporate social responsibility by working with us (March 2022).
We offer regular scheduled phone calls to the isolated or vulnerable as part of our ‘Hello Southampton’ service run with Social Care in Action (SCiA) with support from Southampton University.
Our Manager, Annie Clewlow, said: “We are asking businesses in the city to offer their teams to volunteer for Hello Southampton through their corporate volunteering programmes.
“It would take businesses and employers to allow people to take a one-hour slot out of their day where they could check in with people who need support and do their bit for the local community, which is an extremely rewarding thing to do. It would be great to see Directors and Managers getting involved and leading from the front with this too.
“People living alone really benefit from a regular check-in. The idea of the service is to try to step in at a stage when there are minor difficulties, which, if left to progress, could become a major crisis.”
Volunteers are needed to support people who are lonely and isolated through mobility difficulties, learning or physical disabilities, mental health issues or negative social circumstances.
Volunteer Linda Sharman, who worked in medical administration until recently, explains: “Although I didn’t do this through my place of work, it could work perfectly if it were on offer. Having a one-hour slot where I check in with the folk who need this support is easy to fit into a schedule and a lovely way to get involved with helping out in the local community.”
Our Hello Southampton telephone support service offers regular scheduled phone calls up to five times a week, Monday-Friday.
Calls are made on weekday mornings, so volunteers need to be available to sign up to a regular one-to-two-hour slot and need to have a computer or tablet with Wi-Fi access and their own phone.
Ricky Rossiter, Director of integrated services at SCiA said: “Hello Southampton not only offers a chance to help someone reduce that feeling of loneliness, but also offers a vital opportunity to check on someone’s wellbeing and having referred a number of our customers to the service, I can see the impact a service like this has on increasing people’s support network.”