Aviva Community Fund has provided £1,487 of match funding
Paul's Place at Home - staying connected!
Coalpit Heath, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Ensuring vulnerable, physically disabled adults stay connected, reducing loneliness, anxiety and isolation using creative solutions.
Paul's Place is a local charity enhancing the lives of physically disabled adults and those with cognitive and sensory impairment, supporting them to live life to the full.
We deliver this by providing social activities that connect people, build friendships, reducing loneliness and isolation;- encourage people to develop new skills and achieve independence as well as developing opportunities for people to improve their health and well-being.
In March 2020 in just 24 hours, due to Coronavirus we set up the Paul's Place Emergency Response Project. We have adapted the Paul’s Place usual daily service to offer 'Paul's Place at Home' to the individuals we support with physical disabilities and their carers. This will directly benefit 169 people plus their families.
We aim to;
- Keep in contact with the people we support and their carers via a daily telephone service (7 days a week);
- Provide urgent provisions and offer practical support where we can in the way of shopping, prescriptions, cooked meals etc;
- Ensure that individuals are linked into support local to them; Support each person to access and use technology to stay connected through the facilitation of ‘Paul’s Place Virtual Socials, events and activities’ via Zoom and other similar platforms.
This will be effective as;
- Everyone will continue to feel connected and isolation and loneliness will be reduced as much as it can be during the time of Covid-19;
- The people we support will continue to feel a sense of a community that they trust and are familiar with;
- Everyone will have the right information in terms of other support services and will be linked to the appropriate service(s);
- More of the people we support, carers, staff and volunteers are learning new digital skills in order to stay connected with others.
Our service is vital as 1 in 5 people in the UK are disabled and approximately 75% of those people acquire their disability later in life. Adults with physical disabilities are unsurprisingly among many vulnerable people in our society most at risk of feeling lonely, isolated and anxious. Plus, 72% of carers in the UK said they had suffered mental ill health as a result of caring.
This demonstrates that now more than ever our ongoing support and engagement is critical. These two short videos explain the difference we are making to the people we supports lives in their words.
Our service will ensure we keep those feelings of loneliness, isolation and anxiety as low as possible as well as maintaining the best possible mental and physical health for our carers as well.
We need your help to be able to continue to offer this amazing new project including things like ensuring we can offer the loan of technology equipment to those without any, giving them the support and means to join their friends and stay connected to people they trust and are familiar with.
Paul's Place is celebrating it's 25th Anniversary in 2020 and unfortunately we have had to postpone all our fundraising and celebration events to mark this special occasion.
The charity has grown and developed organically over the last 25 years starting as a group of 4 people meeting once a week in an evening to the charity we see before us today typically supporting 40-50 people each day.
We usually run a number of services that support physically disabled people. This includes access to a variety of social activities, support with a holiday or short break, access to accessible sports and hobbies and a comprehensive carers support package. Our main project is Paul's Place Daily. It runs Monday to Friday all year round and aims to:
- bring people together to reduce isolation;
- help people to gain new interests and have new experiences;
- encourage people to gain confidence and self esteem;
- support people to make healthy lifestyle choices.
We are a disability led organisation and we have an advisory group of disabled service users that work in partnership with the Board of Trustees to ensure that the activities and aims of the organisation remain both disability and needs led.
Whilst our usual activities are paused during this unusual time, Paul's Place at Home is a new, innovative and creative service bringing Paul's Place Daily into peoples own homes and we will undoubtedly modify this project to feature as part of our ongoing service for those that need it, ensuring we are accessible to all as everyone's new 'normal' unfolds.
Please help us to help others to continue to live their lives to the full even in these unusual times, many of whom are living in your local communities!
This project successfully funded on 22nd July 2020