East Sussex Council: Loneliness & Social Isolation.

Our work with East Sussex Council involved their Community Wellbeing Programme, to identify systemic approaches to loneliness and social isolation through understanding current local context, comparing it to the national understanding of loneliness and using this to inform a co-design approach with partners. As someone who has personally been affected by loneliness and social isolation, this was an important project for me and the most complex during my time at Collaborate. 

I have written extensively on loneliness with my own blogs, but to recap loneliness is a defining feature of our current world, especially during the COVID pandemic. At the centre of loneliness lies our desire to connect as humans. That lack of connection can be as harmful as being physically harmed or smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. 

As part of our work, my colleagues and I first reviewed the emerging national evidence to get a deeper understanding of loneliness across the board. We surfaced groups most likely to suffer from loneliness and how we were going to approach our large-scale research and engagement. We recruited and interviewed dozens of local community activists and public and civil society organisations (from practitioners to senior leaders and politicians), generating insights, fostering connections and building a community to work alongside. 

We brought local people and partners together to explore the findings and identify what needs to happen to build a more connected community, followed by developing and launching practical recommendations for the Partnership to continue collaborating on. Something that struck us as a key issue was the disconnection between elements of the community, the council and stakeholders, sometimes due to lack of communication and awareness, but others a breach of trust. Something that was hopefully being rebuilt through this work. 

Through this work we began to forge connections and foster meaningful relationships through an inclusive and collaborative process. This gave the opportunity for stakeholders and residents to share and be heard about what matters to them and how they can connect with one another. We hope this way of working is embedded as the new approach for East Sussex and the momentum created continues.