Thanks to a win-win arrangement, the folks at Social Health Australia (SHA), the organisation auspiced by HSV to take over stewardship of the Secular Spiritual Care Network, have been making calls to our members to check they have the support they need during covid-19 enforced isolation.
Many of our members fall into the “vulnerable” demographic so this seemed like a good place to trial the approach with the possibility of extending to other vulnerable groups in the community.
The good news is that, as expected, most of our members are doing fine. But we did uncover a couple of less happy situations, and SHA were able to follow up and help some people.
There is more still to do in a couple of cases and that work is continuing. A portion of those contacted said they would appreciate more frequent calls, and we aim to set something up soon to facilitate that on a voluntary basis.
I hope we can also create some regional contact groups who will be self-supporting with regular catchups – by phone or video calls for now, and maybe in person in the future.
SHA was founded on the idea of supporting people suffering isolation – little did we know that an isolation pandemic was just around the corner.
