Neighbourhood approaches to loneliness
The tale of two cities
Tracey Robbins
JRF
Qa Research
What exactly is loneliness?
• A mismatch of the relationships we have and those we want
• An internal trigger telling us to seek company as thirst tells
us to drink and hunger tells us to eat
• Loneliness describes the pain of being alone as solitude
describes the joy of being alone
• Isolation is often where there is no choice but to be alone
• Some people seek solitude, but few choose to be lonely,
primarily because it isn’t good for us
Loneliness in the UK
Almost half of
adults in England
say they experience
feelings of
loneliness
Loneliness = A serious risk to health
Loneliness harms our mental and physical health
Lonely people:
• Are vulnerable to alcohol problems
• Eat less well – they are less likely to eat fruit and vegetables
• Are more likely to be smokers and more likely to be overweight
• Are less likely to engage in physical activity and exercise
A neighbourhood approach
• Place based approach to loneliness
• Asset based approach to community development
• Working with people in their neighbourhood to explore what
contributes to feelings of overwhelming/problematic loneliness
• Exploring factors like location, health and wellbeing, safety,
independence, life transitions
• Developing and putting into practice local ideas and activities to
reduce the effects of loneliness
• Making every contact and conversation count
The neighbourhoods – York
Carr Estate
Young families
Mixed tenure housing
Debt problems
Few natural meeting places
Little community focus
New Earswick
Ageing population
High levels of unpaid carers
Plentiful meeting spaces
Rowntree model village
Programme fatigue?
The neighbourhoods – Bradford
Denholme
Rural
Older population
Poor public transport
Active town council
Local meeting places
Bradford Moor
Urban area
Ethnically diverse
Overcrowded housing
Economically deprived
High drug and unemployment rates
Local people leading the way
• Recruited, trained and retained 32 community
researchers in Participatory Learning and Action (PLA)
in all four neighbourhoods
• Community researchers gathered information,
undertook outreach and all fieldwork and analysis and
spoke to over 100 stakeholders
• Talking to over 2000 people gathering almost 7667
individual comments
Action Research using PLA
From actions to ideas
• Members of the neighbourhoods came up with over 1000 ideas to
reduce loneliness
• An average of 65 ideas were prioritised in each neighbourhood and
shared with community partners and local stakeholders
• Community researchers in the neighbourhoods have done planning,
negotiation and project management training
• Each neighbourhood has reduced (not easy!) these ideas to 5
priorities which they are now putting into practice
• Community researchers are now activists – sharing the key messages
What is now happening
NELLI
Parents play
group
Community
allotments
Café Nelle
NELLI Vision
ONE
DENHOLME
Walking group
Film club
App/ face book
Website &
newsletter
makeover
BRADFORD
MOOR
Community
Market
Confidence
group
Get2 Gether
CARR
CONNECTORS
Pop-up Café
Working with
local church &
children's
centre
volunteering
opps.
Community activists contributing
to further work:
Local meetings
Presentations
Media
Key messages from the programme
• Loneliness kills people and communities
• Regulation kills kindness and reduces action
• Lonely people are vulnerable, this is a safeguarding issue
• Building personal and community confidence builds community
resilience
• Community researchers are now activists – sharing the key messages
Key messages from the programme
• The stepping stones to engagement and education need to be put
back
• There is a real contradiction between society’s ideals and
individual experience
• You can take the ideas out of the process.You cannot take the
process away from the ideas
Evaluation methodology
• Qa Commissioned in Autumn 2011
– Worked alongside the programme
– Critical friend when needed
• The aim of the evaluation was to
– foster positive progress, capture wider lessons &
assess overall programme effectiveness
• Methodology
–
–
–
–
–
–
Desk research
Case studies with Community Researchers
Community survey – pre & post
Community focus groups
Stakeholder depth interviews
Critical friend
Adaptations
• Several changes throughout the life of the programme & the
evaluation
– Dynamic / changing programme
– Resulted in several methodological changes
Increased case studies with
community researchers
Peer Research for the
evaluation
Depth interviews JRF &
JRHT staff
Some community focus
groups
Introductions
Causes of loneliness
What causes loneliness?
A range of ‘risk factors’ increase our vulnerability to loneliness:
Wider society:
• Transport
• Physical environment
• Community
• Housing
• Technology
• Crime
• Population changes
Personal:
• Poor health
• Sensory loss
• Loss of mobility
• Less income
• Bereavement
• Being out of work
• Other change, e.g.
becoming a carer
Washing line activity
You have no additional funds
What one thing could you or your organisation do to reduce loneliness
Personal and professional
Free resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
This resource pack brings together the lessons and experiences from the programme
and includes:
Living with loneliness? – a four-page summary of the causes of loneliness, with
infographics;
Let’s talk about loneliness – a four-page summary of ideas and actions to reduce
loneliness, with infographics;
Neighbourhood approaches to loneliness: our stories – a collection of case studies
from some of the people involved;
Working with your community to address loneliness – top tips from our external
evaluators;
Can do – guidance and tips for negotiating community action;
How you can reduce loneliness in your neighbourhood (the process);
Let’s talk about loneliness session plans – five one-hour group work sessions to get
you thinking and talking about loneliness.
Lets talk about loneliness - a short film featuring interviews with the communities
involved in our research
Wot…
no time ?
Anyone can be lonely, even busy people.
Anyone can reduce loneliness – their own or
others
• How do we make every contact count?
• How do we look after the health and wellbeing of our
communities, colleagues and ourselves?
• How do we give the gift of time when we lead such busy
lives?
• How do we resource prevention in hard times?
• How do we ensure that our community assets are
community hubs used to their full potential and open to
all?
• Let’s see how we can all talk about loneliness