Reconnecting the over 50s with their neighbourhood.
Torbay Together (now a part of Devon Connect) reconnects people who are over 50 with the activities and members in their neighbourhood.
Across Torbay is a wealth of talent just waiting to be tapped into, a series of events needing people to go to them and a whole host of organisations offering and wanting help.
Prior to its merger with Devon Connect, Torbay Together was run by Torbay Community Development Trust. The concept for the platform was simple – all those conversations, events, opportunities and social groups that are posted onto national or global platforms like Facebook or Do It were channelled instead onto one platform specific to Torbay and surrounding neighbourhoods. A platform for friends across the Bay.
Now part of a county-wide approach, with other voluntary sector partners supporting different community hubs, Devon Connect continues to help people to exchange their skills and resources in pursuit of answers to their own day-to-day challenges.
Members can also use the platform to meet new friends and make positive connections, earn time credits and connect with a whole variety of support services, social groups and volunteering opportunities.
Community builders from TorbayCDT meanwhile use timebanking to help people change their neighbourhoods into the positive places they would like them to be. The platform's licence is part-funded by the Ageing Well Torbay programme whose aim is to reconnect people to their communities and reduce social isolation amongst the 50+ generation.
We work in a strengths-based way where we focus on what communities have to offer rather than focusing on their problems or needs. Timebanking is a great way to support older people with a range of health and care needs by incentivising those who can help them with time credits.
Simon Sherbersky, Torbay Community Development Trust
To date, Torbay Together has amassed 1,200 new members who have earned over 26,000 time credits (equivalent to 700 working weeks). It is, as Simon Sherbersky describes it, "the missing bit of the jigsaw". And that's why, from a base of 1,500 people, timebanking has helped the Trust to evidence the following key indicators:
- Self-reported loneliness has reduced from 59% to 29%;
- Social interaction has increased by 10%;
- Befriending has increased from 23% to 36%;
- Problems with mobility have reduced from 70% to 54%;
- GP visits have been halved;
- Hospital admittance is down by 60%;
- Extreme anxiety and depression is down from 20% to 8%.
Whilst many software solutions support a clinical system whereby healthcare professionals provide a well-being service to their 'patients', our software puts the tools directly into the hands of communities themselves.
This enables supporting organisations like TorbayCDT, and their partners too, to directly support people who are isolated in one way or another. Torbay Together allowed people to make a difference to themselves and others in their community.
Platform partners: