LONELY pensioners will be offered support through a befriending service which has received more than �400,000 in lottery funding.
The money will be spent on training existing volunteers to pick up on more in depth problems on the phone and to offer counselling through their chats with older people.
The �423,264 windfall from the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) was presented to The Saltbox, which runs PhoneLink, and the Dove Service which will provide the training.
The Dove Service was keen to team up with Hanley-based Saltbox because it has experience of working with older people, who traditionally shy away from official "counselling."
Simon Hankins, chief executive of the Dove Service, said: "We are going to train the volunteers in more active listening skills to pick up on key hints and signs that a person is under distress.
"This is a way of making our service accessible, that's not threatening.
"With grief, people can blame themselves, they can drop out of society and it can express itself in a physical illness.
"We would never see these people, so working in a partnership gives us access to these old people who we would have struggled to speak to otherwise."
The Dove Service works across Staffordshire and in parts of Cheshire, helping people who are bereaved, affected by terminal or life changing illness or dealing with any kind of loss which is causing emotional distress.
As well as the training, the phone service volunteers, cash will be spent on training religious leaders on how to help parishioners deal with the grief in an emotional way, as opposed to the practical side of planning funerals.
The final share of the cash will be spent on helping to train group leaders, such as a Mothers' Union organiser, to also spot signs that someone needs help or support.
These people are singled out for training because they are a natural go-to person for the community.
Any phone volunteer, religious leader or group leader will be told how to pass on tricky or difficult cases to the Dove Service, so that person can receive more help.
Lloyd Cooke, chief executive of Saltbox, said: "Sadly, we have a large number of increasingly elderly people who live alone, they rarely go out, and they can get isolated.
"We want to provide help and support, it's about the community feeling reassured and helped.
"It's not just about the cash and the partnership, it's about the people out there.
"There are some very needy people out there and ultimately that's what it's about."
John Taylor, Big Lottery Fund head of region for West Midlands, believes that the work the two groups do compliment each other and will benefit the city.
He said: "I really value the partnership.
"What BIG wants to do is help groups find solutions and then support them to maximise the skills and resources at their disposal to enable them to act."
He urged people to speak up about the project to make sure lottery players knew where the funding had come from.
To find out more about PhoneLink, or to become a volunteer, call 01782 265651.
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