Listening and Support
We can visit you in the familiar surroundings of your own home to chat about any difficulties or concerns affecting your caring relationships. If you prefer, we can talk with you on the telephone or you are welcome to come and see us at the Carers’ Support Centre.
A Carer’s Needs Assessment will provide you with a Carer Case Leader who will ring you regularly to chat about your situation to see if there is anything they can help you with. This can lessen your isolation, give you any information you need to continue caring and offer you support. Click here to find out more about Carer's Needs Assessments.
Any conversations that take place between us are completely confidential and no details will be given out to other agencies without permission. However, if you say that you are being hurt or harmed by anybody, or your health or safety is at risk, someone will contact you to talk about this.
Ongoing support can also be provided by one of our trained volunteer befrienders, many of whom are Carers or former Carers themselves, so they can empathise with your situation. For more details of this please see the information on our BonAmi Friendship Service below.
A Counselling Service is also available at the Carers’ Support Centre.
Befriending/BonAmi Friendship Service
Have you ever felt in need of someone to talk to who is really interested in you as an individual?
If so...
...Our BonAmi Friendship Service may be just what you are looking for
A BonAmi is a volunteer who will provide friendship and support. This service is usually provided on a time basis to help you over a difficult period.
At times when we feel vulnerable, perhaps following a bereavement or bad news, and feel the need for some informal support from someone who understands, the BonAmi Friendship service could fulfil that need.
A BonAmi will provide a confidential service. He or she will have similar interests to yourself and is chosen because of their skills and personality. Most of us have friends and family but do not always feel that we can talk to them – a BonAmi is someone in whom you can confide knowing that you will not be judged or criticised and that your feelings and opinions are important.
A BonAmi may go with you to a group meeting to support you if you are unsure about meeting new people but want to join a club or a group for example.
A BonAmi will visit or phone you on a regular basis at a time and frequency to meet your needs. Most people find that a weekly meeting is enough but may speak on the phone or communicate by e-mail at other times. The service is led by you and not by the volunteer.
A BonAmi is not expected to provide a taxi service, to replace a counsellor or a professional but to provide informal support as and when needed.
The BonAmi Friendship Service is free and confidential and is available to all Carers and people aged over 50.
If you are interested in our BonAmi Friendship Service please contact Sue White on 01652 650585 or sue.white@carerssupportcentre.com.
Carer Case Leaders
The Carers’ Support Centre has recently employed three new Carer Case Leaders: Jill Baron, Denise Larkin and Anna Zacharias. Their role is to contact Carers regularly to see how they are, whether they can help in any way and to make them feel like “human beings” instead of “just a Carer”.
The Carer Case Leaders will be the main point of contact for Carers offering support, information and a listening ear, and to contact services on the Carer’s behalf where needed.
This service was specifically requested by Carers having been identified in the “Is knaCARERed a Medical Condition?” report of 2009 about North Lincolnshire Carers’ experiences.
