Staff members and volunteers consider it a privilege to be able to make a positive impact on someone’s life. CCA supports older people who live alone or who have few social connections, people with disability to help improve their wellbeing. Our Telephone Linkage program provides regular telephone calls to check on the wellbeing of people who live alone and are at risk of social isolation that may go unnoticed.

“We have people who rarely, or never, leave their homes so we are the only people that they may speak to all week, and it really brightens their day to have someone to talk to,” volunteer Elizabeth says. “Also, it gives them and their families some peace of mind to know that we will be calling in regularly to check that they are OK. Sometimes when we first call them, there may not be much to talk about, but it doesn’t take long for them to look forward to our phone calls and share their life stories with us” she says.

Elizabeth is one of the volunteers in CCA who take part in the Telephone Linkage Program, which is solely managed by our volunteers. Their tremendous work helps to ease the social isolation and loneliness faced by many of the elderly customers and those with limited social contact. According to “The Australian Loneliness Report” that was
produced by the Australian Psychological Society and Swinburne University in 2018, one in two (50.5%) Australians feel lonely for at least one day in a week, while one in four (27%) feel lonely for three or more days. Previous studies have also found that social isolation and loneliness have consistently been associated with poor health and mental health outcomes.

Many people in the community experience social isolation, however, developing effective interventions is not a simple task because there is no single underlying cause of loneliness. Different people may feel socially isolated for different reasons: retirement, adult children moved out of home, loss of loved ones, or decreased health or mobility, or may find themselves in a new community.

Through our regular conversation with clients, we can identify their needs and provide support. This might include providing information on where to access support or we can link them to one of CCA’s support services such as a meals services, social groups and outings, transport assistance or even encouragement to pursue a new hobby.

“For someone who have minimal social contact, doesn’t drive or get out much, this is such a meaningful thing to do, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.” Elizabeth says it is such an honour to know how much of a difference we could make to a person’s life with just a simple task like making a phone call. This is the small steps we take to enable clients to stay in their home for as long as possible.