Our updated version of the Friendly Visiting program was recently launched a few months ago with the return of in person visiting!
NSCR’s Friendly Visiting program is a part of our Better at Home program, which enhances seniors’ well-being and independence by providing a selection of non-medical services to those living autonomously. The Friendly Visiting program focuses on creating and building meaningful connections between community members. Using phone calls and in person check ins done by volunteers on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.
Clara, our Friendly Visiting Development Coordinator, works hard to match up volunteers and seniors who would be a good fit together, keeping neighbourhood friendships a priority. Many of our volunteers are seniors themselves and value the relationships they’ve formed through the Friendly Visiting program. Many of these friendships have grown beyond the program.
Along with phone calls and check-ins, the program also puts a focus on community outreach with efforts to connect residents with their neighbours. Clara, Yola, Seniors Community Connector Coordinator, and Caitlyn, Connect and Prepare Coordinator, run coffee mornings in buildings, providing an opportunity for residents to mingle in a relaxed and open setting. These events are an intersection of programs at NSCR as Friendly Visiting, InterGen, and Connect & Prepare collaborate in its organization.
The Friendly Visiting program doubles as a touch point for Better at Home as it allows them to understand the specific needs of its participants and facilitate help from Better at Home. As Friendly Visiting is a part of Better at Home, participants of the Friendly Visiting program need to be clients of Better at Home. To become a Better at Home client, only the completion of an intake form is needed with no further involvement required with Better at Home unless the participant chooses.
The Friendly Visiting program helps build the confidence of seniors, many of whom have used the Friendly Visiting program as a jumping off point for new, budding friendships, taking their connections outside the program.
Spotlight: Lynn now gets friendly visits in person from Katrina. They live a block away from each other and spend a few hours a week together. They love to play bingo together and walk up Lonsdale. Katrina said it’s so great to be able to have a new friendly face in the neighborhood and Lynn feels the same way!
Photo by www.freepik.com