Perth Six Circle Project supports some of the most vulnerable, lonely and isolated people within our community and since the lock down began in March 2020, we are proud to say we have not only remained open but have extended our hours and days across the full week during this very challenging and unprecedented time. We reassured our service user that we would carry on supporting them and that our aim was to continue applying a person centred approach to address their needs.
We took the “What can we do to help” approach rather than closing our doors. This meant thinking outside the box and looking for different solutions to any issues that arose during the last 5 months.
- Initially we phoned all of our service users, most daily, so they all had the chance to speak to someone, then where we could, we would FaceTime or WhatsApp those who were able to do this, so that they could see a person and not just hear a voice.
- For some, we took them shopping, delivered shopping and set up online accounts so they could do their shopping. If they needed prescribed medicines picked up, we helped were we could.
- We provided easy to read and understand guides to staying safe and kept all of our services users up to date with the changes to Government Guidelines on COVID-19
- We delivered or posted activity packs, which included brain teasers, Sudoku, word search to name a few, to their home addresses as well as delivering Jigsaws, games and art equipment to help keep them busy and we continue to replenishes these…
As time went on and government guidelines changed we were able to meet them for Walk and Talks initially on a 1 to 1 basis then onto 2 or more joining, ensuring government guidelines were adhered to, which we regularly monitored.
We have recently moved to having small clusters, timetabling events such as, socialising (coffee and cake, breakfast and lunches clubs), exercise, walking, garden games, football, basketball, badminton and crafts, again continuing to adhere to government guidelines.
Over the last 6 weeks we have increased our activity frequency Monday through to Friday, which has allowed us to support our services users get out and attend more often. We have also managed to support referral agencies and invited new service users to join the Project, increasing the number of service users we can help and support. In addition to this, we have also continued to offer our Crisis Intervention service, which has been well utilised!
There are so many things we have done over the last 5 months, too many to mention. We will continue to work hard and adapt for as long as we need to, to provide this invaluable service to the most vulnerable, lonely and isolated people in our community.
Check out the last couple of months pictures to see some of the things we have been doing.
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