Volunteers at start of pandemic were often 'declared vulnerable or asked to self-isolate'
Volunteers offering support in the early days of the pandemic were often themselves declared vulnerable or asked to self-isolate, a report says.
Telford and Wrekin Health Improvement and Community Services bosses list this sudden unavailability as one of the “main challenges” of 2020-21.
They add that the council responded with a recruitment campaign which made use of people whose jobs had been furloughed.
The report, which will be discussed by the borough’s Health and Wellbeing Board on Thursday summarises action taken to deal with the impact of Covid-19 since March 2020.
Health Improvement Service Delivery Manager Louise Mills and Community Services Group Manager Louise Stanway write: “The council, with partners, rapidly recognised that there were individuals and households that may need help beyond the support offered by government during lockdown.
“From the outset there was a clear commitment across the council and partners to use resources to provide support – for example a workforce that could be redeployed to new roles.
“We had willing partners and an established network of volunteers to work with and draw support from.”
The council launched a community support line and wrote to 78,000 households advising them of the support available, Ms Mills and Ms Stanway write.
Town and parish councils, community groups and businesses helped with providing food and medicine, collecting pensions and making “safe and well” calls and visits “to make sure our most vulnerable residents were OK, received some social interaction and could access help if needed”, they add.
In a section of the report lists the “main challenges” as “additional funding pressures due to the increased demand”, “making sure community buildings and the people actively supporting local provision were safe” and “adapting to new ways of working as face-to-face contact was no longer possible”.
Ms Mills and Ms Stanway add: “Many volunteers already supporting these community groups because unavailable as many were vulnerable themselves or having to self-isolate.
“To assist with this, the council ran a recruitment campaign at the start of lockdown to recruit as many community volunteers as possible to help us provide this support.
“At the time many people had more time available due to lockdown restrictions or being on furlough.
“Given the volunteering processes already set up in the council we were able to quickly get them up and running and out and about to where they were needed most.”
