Befriending Service
Our befriending service helps people with learning disabilities and autism access activities in the community by providing one-to-one support.
We offer a befriending service to Nottingham City and County for clients with learning disabilities and autism. We support both adults and children over the age of 5 years old. Support is available either in the client’s home or out and about in the community. This could be anything from helping to prepare meals and attend appointments through to accessing community activities such as swimming, cinema and trips to the park. Our aim is to offer the client the opportunity to access activities and social experiences to build their life skills, self-confidence and self-esteem. We help to develop basic life skills in the home and community, including independent travel training and making healthy lifestyle choices. This service also gives parents, carers and their families some respite time and an additional source of support.
The first step is making sure there is funding in place for the person wanting to access the service.
There are two routes:
Self-funding from your personal finances
‘Short Breaks’ funding through financial support from Health and Social Care
Please click here to find out more about funding:
The second step is to get in touch with us by giving us a call (0115 920 9524) or sending us an email (info@n-mencap.org).
What to tell us when you get in touch:
How old the person wanting support is
What their name is
What they want out of the befriending service
Whether funding is in place for this, and if so, where the funding is from (i.e. City/County Council)
This information will then be passed onto our Befriending Coordinator. If we are a suitable service for the individual, they will be put on a waiting list to be matched with a befriender. We take a person-centred approach to match each client to a befriender, working alongside the client and their family/carers. Sometimes we will already have a suitable worker to match the client with, and sometimes we will need to hire a new member of staff to provide this support. We always endeavor to match clients with befrienders as soon as we can.
How to access our befriending service