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Coronavirus: A statement from Hestia

Our priority in the face of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is to ensure the safety and well-being of our service users and provide the best support to our staff and volunteers that we can in this difficult time.

Community support

To try and limit the spread of Coronavirus we have made the difficult decision to move most of our community based support from buildings and face to face meetings, to a personalised approach based on need including telephone based support and managing staff and volunteers to undertake doorstep visits.

Throughout this time we will be working with service users to ensure their basic needs are met in terms of food, medication, mental health and well-being support.

Accommodation-based support

In our accommodation-based services, where we will need to continue to have staff on site, we are moving to safe and sustainable staffing structures to ensure that we continue to have staff available to provide support over the coming weeks and months.

Referrals

We will continue to accept referrals to all of our services, including our domestic abuse refuges and modern slavery support.

To help ease pressure on NHS services and provide alternatives to A&E we will also be striving to keep our recovery cafes and havens open. However all new clients will be health screened for COVID-19 symptoms.

We also have increased cleaning regimes and are providing staff with protective equipment to ensure we provide the right support and protection to everyone.

Life beyond crisis

We know that this is a difficult time for all of our service users, staff and volunteers and that isolation will increase the pressures on people’s mental health. We will continue to review the situation regularly and provide updates. We will also seek to be innovative and proactive in finding different ways to help us all connect, feel supported and be part of the Hestia, and the wider, community.

Together, we can get through this challenging time and to a life beyond crisis.

Volunteering

We have launched three new urgent volunteering roles to support the individuals and families that use our services during this time. These are:

• Accommodation-based support volunteer
• Telephone support volunteer
• Isolation support volunteer

If you can help, find out more by clicking each opportunity, or share the roles with someone you think may be able to help. Thank you.

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