Why the VCS should be front and centre of any tackling loneliness strategy
Summary
Loneliness is highly prevalent in the UK across generations, classes, ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations.
Civil society, aka the voluntary and community sector (VCS), is well-positioned to tackle loneliness, especially those organisations that are led by and for communities. Such ‘grassroots’ organisations are deeply motivated, agile, trusted, knowledgeable of key sections of the community most at risk of loneliness, highly resourceful, and cost-effective.
In fact, community-led VCS may indeed be the only way to tackle loneliness at scale, thanks to being inherently “bottom-up” in nature. However, the potential of VCS organisations is not currently being harnessed. We need to catalyse the sector through delivering place-based loneliness reduction training, and sufficiently fund and empower them too.
The Loneliness epidemic
We are experiencing a loneliness epidemic in the UK. In recent decades, transformative social changes - such as our greater reliance on technology and weakened community ties - have disrupted the way we naturally and traditionally form social connections. What’s more, we're still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic. As a result, nearly 50% of adults report feeling lonely at least some of the time. At Civil Society Consulting, we suspect that the true number is higher because it can be difficult to self-diagnose loneliness.
What do we need to do to tackle loneliness?
We believe the voluntary and community sector (VCS) is arguably the most important player when it comes to tackling loneliness.
Loneliness arises from both structural factors that impact the way we lead our lives (e.g. lack of local services and privatisation of public spaces), personal circumstances (e.g. your socio-economic and mobility status) and psychological factors (i.e. how you think about and approach relationships).
The ultimate root cause can be attributed to the way we live today, which is profoundly individualised and ‘socially atomised’; we have fallen into patterns of behaviour that inhibit human connections, which used to be commonplace and ‘natural’.
As Noreena Hertz, Author of The Lonely Century puts it:
“Dehumanising technology, unimaginative city planning, and austerity have made us unhappy, unhealthy and hostile. ”
Of course, we’d love to advocate for addressing these underlying causes. But this would require a significant overhaul of our current socio-economic system, which is highly unlikely to occur and, even if it did, would take a considerable amount of time for the benefits to unfold.
So how can we reduce loneliness now?
Instead of waiting for a paradigm shift that may never come, we can promptly take action by creating opportunities for individuals to establish meaningful connections within their local community and other communities of shared interests. The VCS is best-placed to do this, which is why we believe the voluntary and community sector (VCS) is arguably the most important player when it comes to tackling loneliness.
Why is VCS the best-placed to forge and strengthen connections between individuals?
There are a few reasons why VCS organisations - especially those that are community-led and grassroots - are ‘strategically’ well-positioned to tackle loneliness.
Number 1: Individuals experiencing loneliness need holistic support to navigate their way out of loneliness because the causes of loneliness are multifaceted and specific to everyone. No one does holistic support better than community-led VCS organisations.
Number 2: VCS organisations are already mobilised. Many work in communities in interpersonal, place-based ways, where connections are forged between community members without organisations specifically trying to tackle loneliness. For example, VCS organisations often create safe spaces and bring people together who share the same faith and belief systems, interests (ie. sport and arts) and identities (culture and ethnicity). Therefore, tackling loneliness can be integrated into other support.
Number 3: What’s more, in contrast to public services, the VCS is fundamentally “bottom-up” in nature. This means that VCS organisations often target specific community needs or gaps in service provision and then scale their efforts from there. This not only positions the VCS to effectively address loneliness but possibly the only way to do so at scale.
While being strategically positioned to develop loneliness initiatives, community-led VCS also possess four fundamental qualities, or what we like to call - ‘superpowers’, which make them particularly cost-effective. They are:
Deeply motivated: grassroots organisations are typically led by and for the community, or by those with lived experience. Therefore, grassroots organisations are driven to tackle loneliness for the community they serve.
Trusted by key sections of the community most at risk of loneliness: Being consistent, committed, and deeply motivated, VCS organisations have gained the trust of key sections of the community. Additionally, there is a lot of stigma around loneliness, which often makes it difficult for lonely individuals to open up to healthcare professionals. VCS organisations (e.g. community groups) are typically non-clinical and, therefore, approachable.
Knowledgeable of key sections of the community most at risk of loneliness: Community-led VCS organisations possess deep local knowledge and a nuanced understanding of the people they support. Typically ‘led by and for’ organisations are embedded in communities and have their ‘eyes on the ground’, meaning they have unparalleled knowledge of the communities they serve.
Agile: VCS organisations are able to move quickly to develop new initiatives as they are motivated by passion and work outside of the bureaucracy of statutory systems.
Our Loneliness Reduction Training
The Campaign to End Loneliness came up with a framework for how these incredibly well-placed organisations can work together in a bottom-up, yet systematic approach to tackling loneliness. Together, we have developed a training programme for VCS organisations, which catalyses this approach.
Civil Society Consulting provides free support to grassroots organisations. Through our work, we’ve noticed that organisations are extremely aware of loneliness and are keen to tackle it but lack some knowledge on theory and therefore how to best direct their efforts. We developed a training programme designed to empower VCS organisations and statutory partners to identify their role as a ‘cog’ in a tackling loneliness ‘machine’. Funded by Know Your Neighborhood Fund, Civil Society Consulting facilitated training to 45 grassroots organisations across England over the Spring and Summer months of 2023. We have produced a report that details the impact and further potential of delivering the training in a place-based way.
To complement our training, we’ve also developed a further resource called 32 Steps to Togetherness - a comprehensive manual of 32 practical actions that organisations can take to build connections within communities to tackle loneliness, but also between communities, to directly tackle the social fragmentation caused by loneliness too. Read more here!
Join our call for action
The fundamental barriers that VCS organisations face to implementing long-term loneliness initiatives is funding, capacity, and time. These cannot simply be overcome by a training programme. Therefore, we’re calling for urgent action to support community-/borough-wide responses to tackle loneliness at scale. In this period of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, loneliness cannot be pushed to the back of the agenda. Now is the time to adequately resource VCS organisations to tackle the underlying causes of loneliness, rather than driving temporary solutions for its knock-on effects.
If you agree with this, add your signature to our report: link here.