Christmas call companion role specific training

Training 1: Introduction

Christmas call companions are volunteers who provide support and companionship to older people by making regular phone calls throughout the month of December. For a small amount of your free time, you can bring a real comfort to an older person who may be feeling lonely, isolated, or sad.

Through the calls, our volunteers help to provide connection and friendship to someone feeling socially or emotionally lonely throughout what can often be the loneliness time of year.

It’s important in general to remember that these phone calls may be the older person’s only social interaction of the week. You may be talking to them about practical concerns but there will also be time to talk about how they are feeling, or things they may be worried about.

A good Christmas call companion will be interested in other people, a good listener, honest, trustworthy, and reliable. Friendliness and warmth are also essential to allow you to build a short-term relationship with the older person.

You’ll need to remember that the older person is an active and equal participant in this relationship and a big part of your role as a Christmas call companion will be to listen to the older person and to not dominate the conversation.

It’s important also to remember the limits of telephone befriending and to recognise its goal and purpose. Christmas call companions are there to provide social contact throughout the month of December. If an older person needs more or different support a good place to start is the signposting pages on the Re-engage website.

You must be aware that supporting an older person in this way might not always be easy and can be challenging. It’s important that you understand that you’re not expected to ‘fix’ the older person’s problems and that you can always talk to someone in the Re-engage team for support.

Confidentiality

Please respect the older person’s right to privacy, and don’t share details of what they’ve told you (in particular their health issues or things they’re worried about) with family or friends. You can however always share information with the Re-engage team.

Please be aware that the older person can’t ask you not to tell Re-engage something, and that you shouldn’t promise this. You must contact the Re-engage team immediately via the incident and concern form if you hear anything that makes you concerned or worried for the older person’s or someone else’s safety and wellbeing.

There is more information on these issues in the volunteer core training safeguarding module.

Obstacles to listening

When you’re making Christmas calls to an older person it’s helpful to be aware of any obstacles to listening that might exist for you.

These can be practical obstacles – it might be too noisy where you are, or too hot or cold, it might be as simple as you not being comfortable where you’re sitting. These things can take your focus away from listening to your older person, so before you make the call it’s worth making sure the environment that you’re sitting in isn’t distracting or uncomfortable for you.

Time can also be a factor. If you’ve allowed 30 minutes for the call and you know you need to be somewhere else after 30 minutes you will find it hard to focus on what the older person is saying as that time comes to an end.

Before making your Christmas calls it’s a good idea to make sure that you’ve allowed plenty of time and that you’re in a quiet and comfortable place. Try to make a conscious effort to put aside anything else that’s on your mind for the duration of the call so that you can focus fully on the older person and what it is that that they are saying.