Our campaigning, research and supporter network is part of a larger picture: a picture where loneliness is tackled through a great variety of interventions and projects.
Many of these groups are signed up to our Campaign; we have over 2500 supporters, over 800 of which are organisations. They receive regular communications from us and are part of our Learning Network. The Campaign to End Loneliness Learning Network can help organisations connect with others, learn from the latest research, and share their own examples of good practice around loneliness.
The Campaign has worked with many members of our Learning Network to showcase a range of successful interventions that address loneliness in later life. We have also held a number of events bringing practitioners together to enable them to connect with each other, in the hope that this will help them improve and expand their work around loneliness. Find out more about how we have influenced and helped the work of our supporter network by reading our case studies.
Unfortunately, many loneliness interventions or activities are under threat of funding cuts, or even closure. It is therefore important that services speak to the people who are making decisions about community health and wellbeing (local authorities, health and wellbeing boards) to explain just how much we need services and activities that tackle loneliness. Services should demonstrate how they could prevent substantial future costs to health and care services. In communications with decision makers, services might emphasise the wide-ranging health and wellbeing impacts of loneliness (See FAQ3 for an explanation of these).
For help making an argument about the importance of continued support and potentially funding of loneliness interventions, take a look at our guidance for local authorities and commissioners. Also take a look at End Loneliness in… for ideas on raising awareness about the impacts of loneliness in your community.
NB. We would like to see interventions of all kinds measuring their impact and sharing their evaluation of this impact. As explained in FAQ4, measuring impact helps services:
- improve existing interventions
- design the most effective interventions
- better support their service users
- approach funders with robust evidence of impact
- increase local authority commissioning of loneliness interventions, by showing commissioners how local authority money can have real impact in the community
We would like to see all loneliness interventions using our guidance, and sharing their findings through our Learning Network for the benefit of nation-wide understanding of what works to address loneliness.
