Thinking long term about loneliness – resilience, volunteering & the digital divide

Isobel Roberts, Policy and Briefings Officer at The National Lottery Community Fund reports on learning from a recent key conveners’ session on loneliness. Attendees ranged from Northern Ireland’s Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum, to the Befriending Networks and the Campaign to End Loneliness. All have long been involved in tackling loneliness.

Isolation and loneliness have been identified as a major health challenge facing the UK in recent years. COVID-19 and mandatory self-isolation has created a unique situation, with far more people suddenly at risk of experiencing problematic loneliness.

Organisations already working in the field have had to redesign ways of maintaining meaningful connections with isolated people. New groups needed to learn how loneliness was impacting on people using their services. Loneliness is a challenge across the UK in a way we haven’t seen before.

During the pandemic we want to learn not only from our grant holders, but also from organisations bringing others together to share their learning about the impact of COVID-19 on loneliness and isolation.

Our learning from our grant-making prior to the pandemic encouraged resilience and the importance of meaningful connections. The focus was on identifying people at risk of loneliness, connecting communities and forming trusted, meaningful relationships.

At The National Lottery Community Fund, that meant investing in a range of projects from The Big Lunch, that brings people together who might not normally meet, to long term, strategic programmes like Ageing Better, which tackle social isolation and loneliness for people in later life.

Now the situation has changed, and organisations tackling loneliness are focusing on how to continue their work in new ways, while also sharing best practice with new volunteer groups and mutual aid work springing up across the UK.

Projects are moving from face to face work to phone/online provision while also worrying about how the digital divide might leave people behind; identifying new groups who may be at risk of loneliness and reacting to new volunteer cohorts.

Digital inequality came up time and again in our discussion. People lack devices, internet connection, confidence and skills. While older people in particular are likely to experience this, it’s not a problem limited to one group.

Others of all ages may also feel cut off due to lack of income; or if their devices do not have the processing power or a strong enough connection to use video calling software.

People with disabilities may not be able to access online services. Rural areas lack broadband. It is an ongoing challenge for the sector to equip people with the hardware and skills necessary to keep them connected.

Across the board, the pandemic has highlighted social inequalities that affect how connected people feel to their communities.

We also discussed new groups of people who may now be at risk of loneliness but could be more difficult to engage. This includes people who have lost their jobs or been furloughed, and those who relied on ‘bumping into’ others at community spaces which are now closed, such as older men in pubs.

These groups may be unused to having to ask for help, and loneliness is stigmatised in some communities, so engaging them is difficult, but will be essential to building back connected communities.

We also discussed the importance of helping people develop a ‘toolkit’ of skills that could help people cope with similar situations in the future.

Uncertainty about the future was something that all those attending the event expressed concern about. As lockdown is lifted at different speeds for different people, or if a second peak of infections leads to further localised lockdowns, isolation will no longer be a shared experience.

Problematic loneliness will always exist, and reintegrating people who are more vulnerable to or more afraid of coronavirus into the community may take a long time.

Current high numbers of volunteers providing befriending support and communities supporting their vulnerable members will tail off as people return to work, leading to concerns about sustainability of support in the long term.

On the other hand, there is also hope that lockdown has been a catalyst for many organisations, in the voluntary sector and beyond, to learn about the relevance of tackling loneliness, and begin to embed this in the way they work.

Maintaining this momentum as we move out of lockdown may give us the opportunity to rebuild a society that is more driven to build connections between people and help communities thrive than what was there before.

We were joined at our session on loneliness by the attendees below , and are grateful for their insights:

• Kate Shurety, CEO at Campaign to End Loneliness
• Sarah Van Putten, CEO at Befriending Networks
• Tracey Robbins, Head of UK Delivery at Eden Project Communities
• Emily Georghiou, Senior Programme Manager at Centre for Ageing Better
• Aileen McGuiness, General Manager at Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum
• Laura Holmes, Head of Tackling Loneliness Strategy at DCMS
• Kate Jopling, consultant
• Iona Lawrence, consultant.

Following on from this virtual round-table we will now be holding an open event on the digital divide during Loneliness Awareness Week on 18 June.

You can register for the event on our COVID-19 Events page at www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/covid19events.