Relationships and social connection

So I want to talk specifically now, um, in session two about the centrality of relationships and social connection in social care practice. And there's a really strong message from Chief Social Workers and talking to them about this webinar, which is that that relational work and that response to isolation and loneliness needs to be part of business as usual. It's not kind of an add-on to social work, social care practice. It's a real central part of it. 

So the evidence scope, um, has a series of recommendations for practitioners, um, and people who work in social care. And they're highlighted here on this slide. So we will be looking at how practice is evolving during the pandemic and how it might evolve in the future in the second half of the webinar. 

But I think as you look at what's going on and you look at where things might go, these recommendations are gonna hold true. Um, they really are sort of, um, fundamental things. So it's really important for us as practitioners to be prepared, willing and able to talk to people about loneliness, which is not a conversation that, um, necessarily feels that comfortable. And of course there are all sorts of kind of cultural and, um, identity issues bound up with that, that we need to be aware of. It's really important for us to understand and know what the social activities are that are available in the area, how to access them, who they're for.

It's important that commissioners listen to practitioners about what's needed, because people on the ground have a real sense of the experiences that people are having, particularly those kind of hard to reach people. And I'm just seeing in the comments, people talking about where somebody's experienced, for example, domestic abuse. Actually it'll be a practitioner who will probably understand what sort of things might be available that would actually be acceptable, appropriate proportionate, um, relevant to that person and, and possible for them. So having that intelligence going into  commissioning is really crucial. 

We all need to understand and have confidence in technological, uh, interventions, which I think is something that people's... if you're like me, but your, um, comfort zone is probably being tested a little bit at the moment. And I think people are really rising to that challenge.Uh, there's quite interesting things happening in our partner agencies. So for example, in-house work around social prescribing initiatives, that's important for social care practitioners to understand and support. 

And that partnership work needs to encompass not just our response, but our understanding. So there's always this issue if you work with other agencies of language and understanding. Um, we need to mean the same thing when we're talking about loneliness, uh, when we're talking about our situation, when we're talking about social connection, so that, that we can properly share learning and, and come up with shared solutions. 

Um, and then there's this really important recommendation that is probably the trickiest in our work in social care, which is enabling time to build relationships and responding individually. And I think social care practitioners are remarkably skilled at building rapport and relationships very quickly with all the barriers and constraints that there are. Um, but it's again, encouraging that another piece of evidence is bolstering the case for us having the time to do that. 

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about relationships and there's some really useful research that's cited in the evidence scope. So I'd really encourage you to go and have a look at it, um, about how relationships form a really central part of the response. And there's different elements to that relationship building. So relationships across agencies, making sure that we work together, um, so we can maximise the chances of responding well, the importance of community and place to people being anchored in a place where they feel they belong, um, and where there can be meaningful connections, thinking about how we can, um, uh, build some of that. And again, we'll talk more about what's happening right now and how that's impacting on, on that area. 

And then the centrality of practitioner relationships with adults and carers, um, and with, um, parents and children and young people. So the evidence focus is looking at the adults, but the messages apply across. And what we know is that often the people that we work with haven't, um, had that that great experience of relationships and may have some experiences, um, that actually, um, make it more difficult for them to build successful relationships in the future. So the relationship being a means and an end for social care. So we are, um, using the relationship to help us support people to get the outcomes that they they want in life. But it's also an end in itself that we are showing them hopefully a relationship that is healthy, that is, um, authoritative, that is supportive and challenging, that is caring, that is meaningful, and then that helps people to, um, build an understanding of what relationships can be. Um, so we're, we're actually, we have kind of work as practitioners to enable people to build relationships. And Maisie et al in 2011 identified these four strategies that help reduce loneliness through showing people relational skills and helping them build those relational skills. 

So improving people's social skills, enhancing social support, increasing opportunities, and addressing maladaptive social cognition. So having that other mindedness of, well, how does this person think other people think of them? And how can we change some of those inner scripts and help people see themselves differently? And that leads into the real importance often of bringing people into new relationships, um, through being alongside them, through showing companionship. So not referring people to something but going with them. And the real difference that that can make to people that they feel that they are accompanied on those, those journeys of, of enhancing their relationships.

And I wanted to mention strength-based work here because, um, the skills and capabilities around strength-based work really fit very well with, um, supporting people to build social connections. Yeah. And relational practice has really strong links to strength-based work. So strength-based practice framework, and the link is on this slide, um, identifies the kind of central capabilities for helping people to build on their own strengths. And that includes their connections, their social capital, their ability to make meaningful connections. And these are the strengths-based skills, but you can see that they totally apply to helping people build relationships, advocacy and communication skills, advice and information, having your, um, ability to listen, show empathy and understand people through open questioning, doing our own networking and collaborative working and offering that to people to support them. 

Using our curiosity, reflection, analysis, problem solving and critical thinking, which will completely link into the person-centered work. There is something really important in strength-based work and in any kind of social care about recognising professional limits. That's partly about making sure the relationship we offer is a relationship that is enabling that person to thrive and thrive themselves. It's an empowering relationship. So we're not ending up creating dependency, but also so that we recognise actually when we need to be bringing other people in and working with others. 

Objectivity and respect for diversity, again, being able to kind of lay aside our own biases and think about what this person needs is crucial to, um, person work and professionalism, um, being confident and competent in our work. So when you're thinking about examples of relational responses to loneliness, I think the first thing I wanted to say was it's important to focus in on the priorities that the evidence scope came up with. So this quote kind of highlights the partnership, um, as the heart of any response or example, um, of, of good work, the opportunity to work in partnership with colleagues across primary care commissioning and the voluntary sector. The third sector support a coordinated approach to identifying and supporting people experiencing loneliness is identified throughout this evidence scope. So it's a constant theme that runs through that. We do this with other people in partnership. 

And the other thing I wanted to highlight is that the government's annual report in January of this year, um, identified three really central planks to responses, drawing on examples. I'm gonna tell you about the examples in a moment. And those sub central planks were information, and communication, place. So working in communities with communities and also the real need to focus on the younger generation as well. 

So these are some of the examples that are highlighted in the annual report. Um, so these are things that were happening before the pandemic. There's links there so you can take a, take a closer look at each of them. 

So Local Government Association and the National Association of Local Councils set about developing the Reaching Out guide, which is a guide to help tackle loneliness in local authorities. So that's something to take a look at. Lots of useful information around case studies, suggestions of how you might locally deliver responses to people. And it's also got things like checklists and top tips in there, social prescribing most of you'll be familiar with. But that has really taken off and there is an expectation, um, in normal times that that will increase greatly. And that's a way that local agencies can refer into link workers and those link workers can get to know people, give them time to understand what matters to them, and give them a fairly holistic response around their health and wellbeing. 

And there's other kind of elements that link in with that, like community navigators, for example, the Let's Talk Loneliness campaign. Some of you may have seen that that gained a lot of support across different sectors. And it was about highlighting loneliness as a... something that anyone can experience, um, as, as not something to be, um, stigmatised, but something that we should recognise and talk about and the importance of, of having those ongoing conversations about it. 

It's also worth mentioning that the statutory guidance for new subjects of relationship education in schools is going to include loneliness as well from planners from September of this year. So that's also a way of children and young people having the chance to talk about it and think about connection and meaningful connection for themselves. 

And then there's this really lovely pilot that Royal Mail did with three local authorities and involving the community and voluntary sector called Safe and Connected, where postal workers went on their normal rounds. They had people that they would stop and talk to three times a week and ask them questions about how safe they felt, how well they felt, how lonely they felt and what support they might benefit from. Did they want to be referred for anything? And then the postal workers would fill that in on their machine and that would go back to a central hub and there would be a follow-up if needed. 

So there were lots of different ways of thinking about who's around who can make those connections and who can have those conversations. And I think the thing that's common in all of these examples is talking about it and making it something that we ask about. 

So again, a reflective point really to follow on from that session, how can we continue to develop relationships as a central part of practice rather than an additional element where people may be lonely? 

And again, there's an activity here which is thinking about the capabilities around identifying, reducing loneliness. And this draws on the brief guide to measuring loneliness, which says sets out the sort of capabilities people would need to have if they were going to have a conversation about loneliness. 

So just building on that to say, here are the things that it's really helpful for us to, to feel confident about before we start having a conversation and feel that we're opening up something that we need to respond to. So you would want to be ready to talk about loneliness, be confident about asking the kind of questions you'll need to obviously have the listening and empathy skills, and then have this knowledge in your back pocket about where would I signpost people?

Being able to contain and manage your own response to some of the things that might come up is of course, which, you know, feelings of other people transfer onto us. We're not immune to them. We need to be confident about the support we can offer and be really clear about purpose, confidentiality and consent.

And I think the other thing that I would just put in there is the help seeking ourselves. Because this is quite a topic for a lot of people. And I think if we're going to be talking to people about loneliness and trying to build their social connections, we need to make sure that we've got supervisory and peer support as well.