Changing lives through friendship

About The Link Visiting Scheme

For 25 years, we’ve brought vital, life-enhancing social connections to older people and volunteers. We’ve seen thousands of lives transformed with friendship and community, and we love what we do!

The problem:

Loneliness is seen by many as one of the largest health concerns we face. It’s painful. It’s harmful to our bodies. It puts us at a greater risk of developing dementia, heart disease and depression. It’s so serious that it even shortens our life expectancy. And it’s on the rise in our area.

Here’s where we come in:

The Link Visiting Scheme was founded 25 years ago to help reduce loneliness amongst older people and to bring generations together in friendship and shared experiences. We offer one-to-one befriending, Friendship Groups, activities, events and long-term projects such as Community Kitchen and Link to Nature. We even provide fun and support on Christmas Day! We have seen the positive impact of friendship where we provide quality time, a listening ear and focused attention on individuals who so often feel invisible and forgotten.

We have seen thousands of lives transformed, and we continue to reach hundreds of older people through our work every year.

We could not offer this life-changing help without our volunteers, partners, and employees. We have a unique understanding, not only of the root causes and impacts of loneliness but also of how best to tackle them in the local area. Our expertise is based on years of experience and collaboration with and learning from, other organisations both locally and nationally.

Our focus is on promoting and enabling friendships in everything we do

When we receive a referral for someone in the grips of loneliness, we need to respond quickly, with sensitivity, kindness and skill. We have developed a pathway that enables us to respond quickly to a referral and support the individual on their journey to establishing long term friendships and broadening social circles to include both interactive activities and events.

From loneliness to social integration

We have developed a specialist pathway to support people in their journey to being better connected. As social well-being increases, the need for support from outside agencies reduces.

We provide a range of friendship-based services within our pathway framework, including telephone-based interim support ‘Link Express’, long-term one-to-one befriending, small social groups ‘Friendship Groups’ and larger community events.

Using our innovative and highly personalised approach, we evaluate how we can best assist our Link Friends to achieve social well-being.

Our award-winning charity

In April 2021 we were delighted and honoured to have been awarded The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service - the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK. Equivalent to an MBE, it is awarded for life.

We also received special recognition for our response to the pandemic. We could not be prouder of our incredible volunteer family, whose hard work and dedication are at the heart of all we do.

Making a difference

We are well-embedded in our local community, receiving referrals from many sources including Community Navigators and NHS Social Prescribers. Demand for our services continues to grow, with referrals increasing from an average of five per month pre-pandemic to 30.

Since 2016 the number of Link Friends has doubled and in the past 12 months numbers grew by 30%. We see the transformative impact of our work daily and receive wonderful feedback from our Link Friends who consistently rate our services highly (79% rating us excellent in our last survey) and allow us to assess their social well-being regularly.

Over 50% of new clients report an improvement in social wellbeing in the first 12 months of becoming a Link Friend