Supporting Your Local Community
Below are some suggestions of ways your local church might consider supporting your local community during the Covid-19 outbreak. We strongly advise that you find out what support is already being offered and to connect with local community organisations to avoid duplication. If you’re not sure where to look, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Signposting
The local councils have now set up dedicated phone lines and web pages for local residents to find out what support is available to them. However, you may have people contacting your church about the support available in your local neighbourhood, too.
Some churches have set up a dedicated phone line for people to call for help and signposting, which can be answered by a member of the church team from home.
You might choose to put some signposting information onto your church website and social media. Visit the websites of community organisations in your local area to see what signposting information they are sharing too.
Practical Support
With many people now being asked to isolate at home due to pre-existing health conditions, there may also be people within your community who need help with practical tasks such as shopping, picking up prescriptions and dog walking. The council are working with local organisations and volunteers to co-ordinate this support across the city.
Encourage members of your congregation to support a local scheme. Volunteers can either sign up with a local organisation directly, or via CanDo Bristol if they live in Bristol.
Some churches have set up a scheme to offer practical help to their community. For advice on how you might do this in a safe way, check out the resources section of the Voscur website. We strongly recommend seeing what is already being offered in your community before starting something new.
Telephone Befriending
Since mid-March, the number of people who are self-isolating has increased rapidly, with those over 70 or with pre-existing health conditions strongly advised against physical contact with the outside world. For some of these people, it will mean no contact with anyone, leading to profound loneliness and deterioration in their mental health.
You might look into offering telephone befriending for those who are feeling socially isolated:
Is there already a scheme in your neighbourhood that you can support?
If not, could your church set one up for your neighbourhood?
‘Two’s Company’ is a telephone befriending model which has been developed by national Christian charity, Linking Lives UK.
The approach provides a tried, tested, straightforward and safe process for local churches to ensure that people within their local communities, who are particularly at risk at this time, can receive regular telephone contact from a member of their congregation. These calls will provide a real lifeline for those who have few family members or close friends.
The new initiative encourages partnerships with existing organisations on a local level, and recommends using volunteer telephone befrienders who have already been vetted for previous roles by the church. Training is provided via video conferencing by Linking Lives UK to local coordinators and is, in turn, ‘cascaded’ to volunteers within the local church. There is no charge for accessing the package, although partner churches are invited to make a donation towards the costs of developing and running the service.
There are already some churches in Bristol who are setting up a telephone befriending scheme using this model. Visit the website to register your interest in doing so too: www.linkinglives.uk
Online Social Gatherings
Many churches are now streaming online services or gatherings for church family and it’s great to see how this is enabling a wider audience to engage with church. However, with many people feeling socially isolated at this time, you might want to consider how your church might use its online platforms to creatively engage with the wider community on a social level too. Already, churches across the city have begun to host some of the following things online:
Quiz events
How-to videos e.g. crafts, cooking, DIY or other skills
Interactive games for kids
Story times
Exercise classes
Messy Church
Support Other Local Organisations
Check out this great resource from yourneighbour.org with suggestions on who to connect with in your local community: Click here
