What's the best way to help the most vulnerable at the moment?

[Juancornetto]

I'm worried that as the Coronavirus situation continues many elderly people will struggle with self isolation. Many don't have the cash or transport to stockpile supplies and don't have access to the internet for home deliveries. And I worry about people being forgotten and not being checked up on if they do fall ill.

I want to know the best way to help without being a well meaning liability. So what's the best organisation to approach for volunteering? I'm not religious but are churches organising care of their parishioners? Or would Age UK be a good place to ask?

Also, does anyone know of any guidelines around providing help? I want to ask my elderly neighbours if I can pop to the shops for them but paranoid that with two germy little children I could just end up passing it onto them when handing over bags of shopping

We were just looking into this at our church. Things are at an early stage yet and I don’t think many organisations are beyond the first stages. We have a list of people who may need help, but of course there are many who aren’t known to the church. We are also getting in touch with the hospital chaplains to see how we can support those in the front line if it comes to that. We will be fine for helpers (I think) but it might be worth dropping an email to your local church saying that you’re around if they need people as some churches have a lot of elderly and not many “youngsters“ to help out.

I agree that the most vulnerable will be those who can’t order in shopping etc and don’t have many family around. You could always offer to order online shopping for your elderly neighbours if they phone you with a list to avoid the germs.

If it does get to the stage of schools closing then I’m thinking of offering help on the local Facebook page- I’m a sahm and could look after extra if their parents needed to work in healthcare etc.

I think it’s too early to do much now, but I’m planning to pop in and see the elderly folk on my street in the next week or so and give them my number in case they get stuck.

Some really good ideas, thank you teapotter!