Loneliness: The role of social work and social care practitioners – Meeting Loneliness Together

The Social Care Council in partnership with subject matter experts, social workers, social care practitioners, employers and service users have developed two loneliness resources. The resources are designed to support social care practitioners and social workers to understand the importance of looking out for loneliness and how developing meaningful relationships with people who rely on social services can contribute to solutions to loneliness. The resources have been funded by the Department of Health, Northern Ireland

Click on the films below to view promotional films.

The resources provide access to high quality, dynamic and relevant information anytime, anywhere, any device.

Loneliness has been recognised as a world-wide public health issue which can affect people of any age and lead to physical and mental health problems and reduced life expectancy if not addressed. The social care workforce is the largest workforce in the Health and Social Care sector. There are over 41,000 social care practitioners and 6,000 social workers registered with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council; that is over 47,000 opportunities to look out for loneliness and to develop meaningful relationships with people who rely on social care services.

These two resources aim to enable social workers and social care practitioners to learn about loneliness, its impact of loneliness on the people they are supporting and caring for, who is more at risk of loneliness and how they can contribute to reducing and preventing loneliness.

Both resources include films and scenarios of social care and social work practitioners and service users talking about the impact of loneliness.

The resources have been designed to support all levels of continuous professional learning and development with options to links for more detailed reports and current research. The resources are also relevant to other health and social professionals, community and voluntary organisations, carers and individuals.

You can access the two resources below: