Responding to loneliness

So I just want to talk a bit about some potential areas for development.  

The first thing I wanted to start with is co-production. So that's about jointly identifying issues and solutions to building community connections. And I think that's going to be increasingly important because if you think about demographics of our country, we've got increasing diversity in the population, growing diversity and growing expectations as well about tailored support and the centrality of person-centred responses of being person-centred to having effective responses means that unless we work with people with lived experience and co-produce things with them, our response won't be anything like as effective. And also through working in co-production, we can make sure that the resources that we put in are used in the best possible way. And I think the pandemic actually is an area where learning together as practitioners and people with lived experience will help really understand what's worked and what can come forward in the future. 

The second area, um, is about community development. So there's always been a really strong strand of community development within social care and social work, but we've moved kind of towards it or away from it at different times in history right now. There is an emphasis already on place-based solutions, so things that work locally for local people. And there's an emphasis within strength-based work on the community as a resource. But I think what we're seeing with the response of the community to the particular need of the pandemic is real growth in that grassroots community response to things.  

And also into intergenerational support, which is quite exciting actually, that we see younger and older people offering reciprocal support, bringing their strengths to the fore. And we're also seeing community places becoming real centres of response. So the takeaway, the pub, the shop, so that's something I think could really be built on, is really exciting. 

We also, of course, have to absolutely recognise the inequalities between different communities, and some communities have much more resilience and resource, so we have to kind of attend to that. And social cares work will partly be around, um, sharing those social connections and that social capital. 

The next area is about changes in the ways of connecting, relating to others. So the rapid rise of virtual connection, virtual activities, virtual social networks, I don't think is likely to be quickly reversed. People will be more familiar with it and the capacity of networks to manage it, the, the setups that people have are likely to be still in place. So again, there's a real potential from that for us to draw on. Again, got to be very careful of the discrepancies in different areas. 

So I live in the South West, and depending where you happen to be, there is more or less availability of the internet. For example, Somerset has one of the worst coverages of broadband so we've got to be mindful of those things as well. It's also something to particularly think about for younger people because of their greater familiarity. But with that caveat that virtual methods so far in human history haven't replaced human connection completely. So we do need to make sure that there's that balance and that there’s a strong human touch somehow within those kind of developments. 

Partnership work, integration was already the big thing that was happening in adult services and very, very prominent in children's services. So the response I think right now to the pandemic and all the evidence that we have suggests that there's a real, opportunity to increase our connections, increase our understanding of each other's roles, and to work more closely together. And I think the importance of the recognition of the importance of social care in the third sector at the moment will hopefully last and fuel some of that.  

We're seeing already developments like social workers in GP surgeries. That's something that's happening across the board in Northern Ireland, for example. So I think that there's a lot of scope for partnership work and creative ways of working together. And then the commissioning response. So commissioning is always slightly behind creativity. So what I'd hope we'd see is some of the things that are happening spontaneously or innovatively being scaled up in some way. And really kind of coming into those conversations about what sorts of support do we want in our local communities, what sorts of things do we need? And also the transfer of learning between areas. So something that's successful in one area, looking at how that might be replicated or enhance another opportunity somewhere else. 

And so practitioners sharing examples of what's working, blogging about things, talking about things, being really proactive and letting their organisations know about what's working is vital. 

And then organisations joining that up and sharing that between them. And again, networks like BASW (British Association of Social Workers) network, like Research in Practice's network and also networks like the Principal Social Worker's networks are really valuable in making sure that learning gets transferred across. 

So the other thing I really wanted to mention in terms of how things are developing and will develop in the future is digital capabilities. I think it came up in the comments earlier, which is great. So BASW and Social Care Institute of Excellence have just published Digital Capabilities for Social Work, and you'll see on there the link for those. So that's a set of capabilities for social workers, but it's really relevant to other areas of practice as well and other roles. 

There's also information about ethical considerations about using digital technology. There's examples and in the future, what's hoped for is that there'll be an increasing network of digital champions, but what we'd expect is that use of digital technology and our skills and confidence in using it will enhance as well. 

So the reflection point from all of that is around the social care role really in taking a lead on capturing learning, shaping practice in the localities. So for you in your areas, and I saw on the, the list of people from different local authorities across country, how can social care lead on capturing learning from and shaping practice in your locality? 

Ok, so there's a final activity, which is, it's described as a poll, but it's actually a question really for you all. So I'd like to just take a couple of moments for you to have a think about the three areas of evidence-informed practice, which are all important in helping us understand what our next steps might be. 

So three areas of evidence informed practice are research, practice, experience, and people's lived experiences and views and voices. So I'd like you to think about how you can use those three areas to understand what you might want to do next. 

So, how will you get information from people with lived experience? How will you get information from practitioners? And what research might you look at to help you understand, how best to tackle loneliness and build social connections?