Adapted extracts from notes by a volunteer befriender trained by the Befriending Network - an organisation set up to provide home visits for those with life-threatening illnesses. The Befriending Network is a charitable project set up by the Natural Death Centre that desperately needs funding help if it is to keep going, so it seems an apposite moment to describe the kind of work it is doing.
The notes below outline an unusually active befriending relationship - normally volunteers only need to commit themselves to three hours of visiting per week. Names and some details have been changed to preserve confidentiality.
I visited Anne more than 150 times. I normally visited two to three times per week, each visit lasted from one and a half to four hours depending on what she wanted me to do for her or how well she was: it was a matter of writing letters and cards, taking her out shopping or for social reasons, sorting out her finances, trying to get extra aids for communication and representing her at case conferences.
Besides the visiting, there were phone calls to be made on her behalf: sorting out her care with caring agency, liaising with her family and care manager, and with the social services finance department. This was all concerned with representing her needs.
In the later months as her speech became more difficult, her memory and her hearing were failing, and I was the only person who could understand her and was fully aware of all her needs on a daily basis. As her communication difficulties sometimes caused a rift with her carers, I was occasionally able to help with the communication, this helped her with the frustration she felt at not being able to communicate fully.
She needed 24-hour care and she had a lot of different carers, some of whom she did not like. The carers found my visits a break for them because she could be quite demanding.
A typical week would go like this:
Monday morning, phone calls on her behalf, and perhaps picking up money for her from social services.
Tuesday, visit her at the centre and take her shopping (10am - 12).
Thursday morning, visit at home, do any correspondence, phone calls, have a chat and a coffee, or do personal shopping in the local shopping centre, have a walk, coffee, visit her bank, etc. Normally 10 - 2pm. In the latter weeks I would give her her lunch on this day.
Friday evening or Saturday morning I would go round for a social visit or other reason.
These visits had to be fitted in around my work rota, and, as I work shifts, these times were not consistent every week. Other outings included visits to swimming baths, theatre, pub, etc.
In the last months I was in contact with her every day, even if this was just to say hello. By this time she was demanding more of my time and attention, leaving messages on my answerphone to visit or call. During her last week in hospital, I visited once or twice daily, except on two days when I was working long hours. On these days I phoned her a couple of times a day, as well as making frequent calls to her family to keep them up to date with her condition.
Anne was always determined to keep as much independence as possible up to the end, and social services would have found it easier just to do things for her and thus take away her control. My intervention prevented them from doing this and this made a difference to her feelings about herself - she had always been a fighter and she found satisfaction from believing that she was speaking for other people with disabilities.
I took the time to listen to her and understand her and above all treated her, and indeed thought of her, as an equal. I think the fact that I was a volunteer and there because I wanted to be there, rather than because I was being paid or because it was a duty, was important. The friendship itself became important to her.
I am left feeling lost - missing Anne (I feel I have lost another friend), and I am missing using the skills that I was called on to use when I was involved with her. I enjoyed this one-to-one way of working and I found I was able to go to talk to professionals on her behalf, to listen to her needs and to use my voice to help her. I gained confidence in the levels of skills that I have.
When her health got more critical, I found the situation often emotionally and mentally draining, but worth the effort.
I feel now, a couple of months later, that I am ready to take on another befriending relationship - but initially, not such an intensive one.
• The Befriending Network is at Claremont, 24-27 White Lion Street, Islington, London N1 9PD, UK (tel 020 768 2443; e-mail: info@befriending.net; web: www.befriending.net).
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