News

Twelve YOPEY Befrienders from a Welwyn Garden City school have been given awards for befriending elderly residents at a care home in the Hertfordshire town. The Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire visited Oakview Lodge and saw the sixth-formers from Ridgeway Academy “in...

Are you aged 16 to 24 and living in rural north Essex? Would you like to volunteer at a village care home to reduce loneliness among the elderly? At the same time you can play games, chat and learn history from people who lived it. You may even meet someone who was a...

Sophie Clarke, who is our first wheelchair-user YOPEY Befriender, has been visiting Lyncroft Care Home in Wisbech for two years. Most YOPEY Befrienders visit for one year before handing over to their successors. We thought we would hold a surprise awards ceremony for...

A Spalding teenager received awards from the High Sheriff of Lincolnshire and YOPEY for being "a great friend to the elderly" in two Spalding care homes over two years. Eighteen-year-old Matthew Simons first visited residents in St John's Care Home while in the lower...

The High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire came to Huntingdon to witness young people befriending elderly residents in one of the town’s care homes. Seventeen-year-olds Ben Gilbert and Edward Hampson are among a group of sixth-formers from Hinchingbrooke School trained and...

YOPEY has won £3,000 by coming third out of over 300 UK charities in a competition put on by a major insurance company. Zurich Municipal, the public and voluntary sector insurer, in partnership with the Z Zurich Foundation, launched its ‘Innovation in Diversity and...

Two YOPEY Befrienders became television stars when they appeared on ITV Anglia News (Tuesday 2 July) – for their amazing volunteering...

From a Facebook post by Country Court care homes: We are incredibly fortunate to have joined the YOPEY Dementia Befriender initiative in some of our homes this year 🌟 Led by Tony Gearing MBE, this wonderful program allows young people to volunteer and offer...

Teenage volunteers are giving up their time to befriend older people with dementia in two Abbey Healthcare homes in Huntingdon to help combat loneliness and teach young people skills. A handful of students from Cambridge Regional College’s Huntingdon campus have been...

A Suffolk sixth-former gave a moving speech to 60 golfers about her volunteering as a friend to elderly people living in a Sudbury care home. Many of the residents have dementia. Seventeen-year-old Emily Ward started volunteering with YOPEY during the pandemic. During...

YOPEY has held its first fundraising day at a golf club. The charity’s founder Tony Gearing MBE plays golf so this was a way for him to fundraise for his charity while enjoying his hobby. About £3,000 looks like being raised for YOPEY’s befriending partnerships...

YOPEY Befrienders from a school and a college in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, were celebrated at an awards event at the care home they have been visiting for many months. Sixth-form students from Hinchingbrooke School and health and social care students from the...

Young people from three schools were celebrated at an awards event in a care home in Ipswich. The home and the West Suffolk charity that trained them to befriend people living with dementia laid on the event. Sixth-form students from Ipswich School, St Alban’s...

Before the pandemic I started a new YOPEY Dementia Befriender community partnership between the Dereham Sixth Form College and a care home in the Norfolk town. Kasey Challenger was one of about 20 sixth-formers who were trained by me and taken to York House. They...

SMILES GALORE show young and old enjoying themselves as young people from a Suffolk sixth Form visit residents at a care home for the first time. After arriving at Hazell Court in Sudbury, the 16 and 17 year-olds from Thomas Gainsborough School in Great Cornard joined...

It is with a very heavy heart that we learn of the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – the world’s greatest queen. As well as being the longest reigning British Monarch, Her Majesty was also the longest reigning female monarch in world history. In 1947 at the...

I received this email from the mother of a past Young Person of the Year last week: Hi Tony – Just a little message to tell you my beautiful daughter Stacey lost her fight this morning and gained her angel wings at 5:37 – Regards Sharon When I started Young People of...

By Kasey Challenger, age 20
 When I started sixth form, I was struggling with insecurity about what I wanted to do when I left. I had a rough idea that I wanted to study psychology at university but I was unsure where this would put me in a few years’ time. When I...

Every Sunday afternoon the old man would wait at the window for that first glimpse of his friend coming to visit him. Before she entered the care home, the teenager would always smile and wave at him. This all sounds very ordinary until you learn the old man had...

The UK’s care homes are filled with a wide variety of elderly people, many of whom want to continue living an active and vital life. One way to do this is to continue with old friendships or encourage new ones. The charity YOPEY offers care homes the opportunity to...

This charity's founder – Tony Gearing MBE – saw young people struggling with their mental health during the pandemic. They feared the disruption of their education had destroyed their future, and many still do. Tony wondered what he could do to help... From 2004 to...

Pictured with his wife Celia, Robert Voss CBE CStJ is Patron of the YOPEY charity. The first set of letters after his name stand for Commander of the most excellent order of the British Empire. He was made a CBE in 2014 in the New Year Honours for his ‘Contribution to...

YOPEY has notched up the 2,000th care home it is supporting for free since the start of the pandemic. Before coronavirus, this small, registered charity worked in about a dozen homes a year. The charity would recruit and train older schoolchildren to befriend elderly...

A sports club from a town near YOPEY's HQ has raised over £1200 for the charity during the pandemic. Haverhill Running Club raised £1269.58 for YOPEY at the height of covid-19. The club’s immediate past chair Hayley Wilson presented a cheque to the charity’s founder...

‘Virtual’ YOPEY Befriender is a winner for young and old, care homes and schools. A pioneering scheme that brings together elderly care home residents and teenage school students in friendship and companionship hopes to emerge from covid stronger than ever. The...

A few exchanges between young people and their elderly friends AGE OF WISDOM – extracts from visit reports by YOPEY Befrienders   “I took part in a quiz with residents. The questions were quite hard – it seems the residents’ general knowledge is much better than...

In normal times this charity runs befriending schemes between schools and care homes, mainly in the East of England. We have contributed to homes being upgraded by the CQC. We aim to return to face-to-face befriending in the autumn of 2022. Meanwhile, we are inviting...

Every Sunday afternoon the old man would wait at the window for that first glimpse of his friend coming to visit him. Before she entered the care home, Mary would always smile and wave at him. This all sounds very ordinary until you learn the man had dementia and Mary...