A service user, now volunteer, with the South Eastern Trust’s DisAbility HUB, Briege Trainor has credited the service in transforming her outlook and friendships as we mark Loneliness Awareness Week.
The theme for this year’s Awareness Week is ‘Random Acts of Connection’, encouraging everyone to increase simple, everyday moments of connection to combat loneliness and increase a sense of belonging.
Research has shown how the impact of loneliness on health can increase the risk of poor mental health, anxiety, poor sleep quality and early mortality.
Briege has been accessing the HUB, in Downpatrick’s Downshire Hospital for almost two years after a referral from her GP. “I was referred to the HUB by my own Doctor due to self-isolation, which sadly I had got consumed by. I didn’t have a physical disability as such and when I first walked in I kept thinking, ‘Would I fit in?’ ‘Would I be accepted as who I am?’ Two years on from that day I feel accepted,” said Briege.
Now a volunteer with the service, Briege described it, “So valuable and needs to keep going.”
Briege explained how both the service itself and welcoming other service users has helped her both, “physically and mentally.” “Being part of this service had helped me communicate more and show people this is who I am and helped me to help others. Isolation can feel like being in a bubble. You can get so consumed that you forget that you need a good positive social aspect as well. Being part of the service has given me the steps to show the skills I have and to show their skills to others.”
Briege added, “It’s ok to make that step to come to the HUB as you won’t regret it.”
The South Eastern Trust’s DisAbility HUB Co-ordination Kelly Benson said the service is continuing to grow from strength to strength since its inception four years ago.
“Our role is to engage people who live in the community and who don’t attend day centres or other forms of social engagement. We work with adults with physical disability, brain injury and sensory loss. We encourage them to come along to groups to socialise, to try new experiences through workshops and information sessions in the Down and Lisburn areas.
“We have 103 people on our books at the minute and we try to reach out to people who are socially isolated because disability is a big aspect of social isolation and loneliness.”
Kelly continued: “We have discovered that loneliness can affect people’s health and well- being and actually make their physical health much more dependent upon the traditional services within the Trust. Within the HUB we have a flexible approach to service users attending the sessions as and when their health allows them to. Those who attend find it is a brilliant way of making lasting friendships.”
With volunteers such as Briege putting the HUB firmly on the map, Kelly said it is successes such as this that, “supports and motivates me to make the service even bigger.” “People come through our doors who have been very shy, very unsure of their abilities and now we have people who are volunteering and welcoming others to combat their loneliness as well.”