North East

Chain Reaction

Contact: Catriona Huck - 07917 686 658 - catriona.huck@keyring.org

Chain Reaction is a service that supports older people (55+) to live independently in the community. KeyRing was instrumental in designing it and is one of three partners delivering it across Newcastle.

KeyRing believes that everyone has the right to be respected as full members of their community and to contribute to that community. That right does not diminish as people get older, but people may start to need some support in order to maintain it. We believe that a shrinking social circle is not an inevitable part of ageing and that low level support to maintain connections to friends and to the local community helps prevents loneliness and poor health.

We support people to live independently in their community, connect with other people and join local groups and activities in their community. Our community-based support helps people to improve their health and wellbeing and reduces social isolation.

Preventative service

We offer tailored, one-to-one support to help people improve their general health and wellbeing. This includes:

• Support to manage housing issues, welfare rights, or other finance issues.
• Connecting people with their local community by getting involved in clubs and interest groups.
• Connecting people with others who have shared interests or hobbies.
• Helping people to make new friends and reconnect with family members or old friends.

Targeted Service

We also offer one-to-one support to address a specific short term need. This involves 12 hours of support delivered over a six-week period. This includes:

• An initial meeting with the client to understand their needs and agree an action plan.
• Ongoing support over the six-week period. The level of support each week is flexible and tailored.
• A final review of support, offered at week six.

One-to-one personalised support

We provide one-to-one support for two to three hours per week. This support is personalised and can include:

• Help with budgeting and managing finances.
• Support to make phone calls or manage correspondence.
• Support with health-related issues. Support to attend appointments.
• Help with domestic skills such as shopping, or cooking and preparing healthy meals.
• Preventing social isolation by helping people to attend local community groups, connect with friends and family as well as providing a listening ear.

Our preventative support is free to people living in Newcastle and is funded by Newcastle City Council. For more information on the cost of our targeted and one-to one support, please contact Catriona Huck on 07917 686 658 catriona.huck@keyring.org or check our website.

You can also download the Chain Reaction flyer.

Newcastle Networks

Contact: Catriona Huck - 07917 686 658 - catriona.huck@keyring.org

Our networks in Newcastle started long ago in 2001 so we've been around for a long time in the North East!

We have 2 Newcastle networks, situated in East and West of the city. These are traditional networks offering support to vulnerable people to be part of their community and make connections with other KeyRing Members. One of our Community Living Volunteers in Newcastle has been supporting her network since 2006 - a fantastic commitment! The networks are funded by the local authority of Newcastle.

We also support people via the learning disability and autism framework in Newcastle. This is a personalised service tailored to people's needs and wishes. We always maintain a focus on encouraging people to be independent and develop their skills. Support is structured around the person and we aim to help people unlock their potential. With everyone we support we focus on 3 areas;

• What support does the person need to live well independently
• How can we connect the person to their community
• How we can connect the person with other members of KeyRing to widen their social connections and develop relationships.

We regularly hold drop in hubs at a central venue which everyone we support can attend. We focus on things that matter to the people we work with and we invite specialists to come and meet us where necessary. We look at things like digital inclusion, sexual health and planning social events. We have a focus on the 5 ways to wellbeing and we try to link the things we do to this structure. The hub is a really positive way of bringing people together and offers people the opportunity to share ideas, learn new things and build friendships

For more information or to refer to us, please contact Catriona Huck on 07917 686 658 or email catriona.huck@keyring.org.

You can speak with us about all of the different ways of accessing and funding our support including using a personal budget (direct payment or individual service fund) or through self funding.