Unloneliness Conference - 20th July 2015

#unlonelyleeds
Friday 17th July
Leeds Civic Hall

DID YOU KNOW?
In 2011 to 2012 around 1 in 7 (15%)
people aged 45 to 54 reported feeling
lonely, the highest of all age groups .
This compares to 6% of younger
people aged 25 to 34.
#unlonlelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
There are 37 locally based schemes as part of the
Leeds Neighbourhood Network. These are run by
committees that are representative of the
communities they serve, with the aim of enabling older
people to feel included in their local community and to
have choice and control over their lives.
In 2013/14 it is estimated that there were a total of
110,019 contacts between users and the
Neighbourhood Networks, across a total estimated
membership of 22,000 people.
#unlonelyleeds

#unlonelyleeds
Friday 17th July
Leeds Civic Hall
9.15-13.00

DID YOU KNOW?
Loneliness is potentially as harmful to
health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
Reducing age-specific dependency
rates by 1% per year would reduce
public expenditure by £940m per year
by 2031
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
The value of unpaid carers to the
Leeds economy has been estimated
to be valued at £1 billion a year.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
Life expectancy for men is 10.8 years
lower for men and 8.5 years lower for
women in the most deprived areas of
Leeds than in the least deprived
areas.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
Over 8 in 10 (83.4%) adults aged 16
and over in England engaged with, or
participated in, arts or cultural activity
at least three times in the year.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
The number of people aged 80+ who
live in Leeds is expected to rise to
39,000 by 2021.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
In 2011, adults aged 18 and over in
the UK scored their satisfaction with
family life as 8.2 out of 10
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
Nearly 1 in 4 disabled people feel
lonely on a typical day
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
There will be more than 1 million over
70s by 2020. One Third of these will
be living alone.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
The ‘Community Life survey’ showed
that in 2013-14, 41% of people
volunteer formally at least once in the
previous year in England. 27% are
regular volunteers taking part at least
once a month.
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
4 million people in the UK say their
television is their main source of
company
#unlonelyleeds

DID YOU KNOW?
Over half (58.2%) of adults aged 16
and over were somewhat, mostly or
completely satisfied with their
amount of leisure time in the financial
year ending 2013.
#unlonelyleeds

Welcome and Introductory
Remarks
#unlonelyleeds

OPENING QUESTION:
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU INTERACTED
WITH SINCE 6PM LAST NIGHT?
Split into 2s or 3s and discuss this question. Think about:
 Who were these interactions with?
 Were they personal or professional?
 Were they face-to-face or virtual?
 Were they relational or transactional?
 Were they one-way or two-way?
#unlonelyleeds

Measuring Social Isolation
#unlonelyleeds

Overview of presentation
 Why?
 How- research methods
 Challenges
 What Older people on Leeds said
 What other partners said
 Conclusions and recommendations

Can we measure social isolation ?
Why – local insight tells us this is an issue for older
people in Leeds
- Time to Shine
- Target work at those most in need
Data used-
 Long term health condition
 Dementia
 Claimants of means test Pension Credit
 Widowers
 Non-white
At an MSOA level
Second index – taking out those in receipt off ASC; street level.

What Next?
 Very different results
 Data is data , we needed to be intelligent
 Social isolation and loneliness – can they be
separated?
 High risk of analysis at street level
 Sense check.

Types of social isolation measured
o Social contacts
o Community networks
o Leisure pursuits
o Self reported isolation

Research Methods
• Documentary analysis
• Interviews: 90
• Focus groups: 3
• Telephone interviews and questionnaires with
local organisations/stakeholders: 14
• Fieldwork observations

Challenges
 Gaining access
 Reluctance to participate if did not view self as
isolated
 Frailer isolated older people
 Refusal to answer door
 Time pressures of stakeholders

What older people told us(1)
 None isolated due to lack of social contact
 56% involved in community networks
 Two thirds reported at least one neighbour they
could trust
 86% involved in some form of leisure pursuit
 11 reported not being involved in any outside
activity in the last few months.
 6 referred to themselves as being isolated ‘all’ or
‘most’ of the time

What older people told us (2)
 Disability - only effective indicator
 ‘Place based’ (micro localities)
 ‘Community spirit’
 Transport
 Concerns around safety
 Preferring own company

What stakeholders told us
• Area based factors:
o Local services and activities
o Housing accommodation type and locality
o Weakened community links
o Low levels of family support
o Fear of crime

What stakeholders told us (2)
• Individual level factors:
o Disability
o Substance misusers and prison leavers
o Younger old people
o Gender
o Personal choice
o Affordability

Tackling Social Isolation
• A coordinated/inclusive approach
• ‘Person centred’ services
• Improve community/intergenerational
cohesion
• Engaging hard to reach older people

Conclusions
• Usefulness of a social isolation index
• Potential individual level factors:
disability, gender, age, complex needs
• Future research

EXERCISE:
MAPPING NEEDS AND ASSETS IN OUR COMMUNITIES
Part One: Case study
a) As a group, choose one or two stories from the six
case studies
b) Discuss what’s strong and what’s wrong in this
individual’s life
Part Two: Asset-mapping
a) Consider the map of the area you have in front of
you to identify potential assets.
b) Use the colour code (as shown in the table on the
right) to mark assets on the A1 map on your table.
(It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the area – we
can guess what type of assets may be in places)
c) Add any other assets you can think of - these can
be specific to the area which you know of, or
general assets
Part Three: Connections
a) How could these assets be harnessed to increase
the social capital of the individual you chose?
#unlonelyleeds
Key
Asset Type Colour
Individuals Orange
Associations Pink
Organisations Purple
Physical Assets Yellow
Economic Assets Blue
Cultural Assets Green

Neighbourhood
Approaches to Loneliness
#unlonelyleeds

Neighbourhood approaches to loneliness
The tale of two cities

• A mismatch of the relationships we have and those we want
• An internal trigger telling us to seek company as thirst tells
us to drink and hunger tells us to eat
• Loneliness describes the pain of being alone as solitude
describes the joy of being alone
• Isolation is often where there is no choice but to be alone
• Some people seek solitude, but few choose to be lonely,
primarily because it isn’t good for us
What exactly is loneliness?

Loneliness harms our mental and physical health
Lonely people:
• Are vulnerable to alcohol problems
• Eat less well – they are less likely to eat fruit and vegetables
• Are more likely to be smokers and more likely to be overweight
• Are less likely to engage in physical activity and exercise

• Place based approach to loneliness
• Asset based approach to community development
• Working with people in their neighbourhood to explore what
contributes to feelings of overwhelming/problematic loneliness
• Exploring factors like location, health and wellbeing, safety,
independence, life transitions
• Developing and putting into practice local ideas and activities to
reduce the effects of loneliness
• Making every contact and conversation count
A neighbourhood approach

The neighbourhoods – Bradford
Denholme
Rural
Older population
Poor public transport
Active town council
Local meeting places
Bradford Moor
Urban area
Ethnically diverse
Overcrowded housing
Economically deprived
High drug and unemployment rates

The neighbourhoods –York
Carr Estate
Young families
Mixed tenure housing
Debt problems
Few natural meeting places
Little community focus
New Earswick
Ageing population
High levels of unpaid carers
Plentiful meeting spaces
Rowntree model village
Programme fatigue?

• Recruited, trained and retained 32 community researchers in
Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) in all four
neighbourhoods
• Community researchers gathered information, undertook
outreach and all fieldwork and analysis and spoke to over
100 stakeholders
• Talking to over 2000 people gathering almost 7667
individual comments
Local people leading the way

• Members of the neighbourhoods came up with over 1000 ideas to
reduce loneliness
• An average of 65 ideas were prioritised in each neighbourhood and
shared with community partners and local stakeholders
• Community researchers in the neighbourhoods have done planning,
negotiation and project management training
• Each neighbourhood has reduced (not easy!) these ideas to 5
priorities which they are now putting into practice
• Community researchers are now activists – sharing the key messages
From ideas to action

What is now happening
BRADFORD
MOOR
Community
Market
Confidence
group
Get2 Gether
CARR
CONNECTORS
Pop-up Café
Working with
local church &
children's
centre
volunteering
opps.
NELLI
Parents play
group
Community
allotments
Café Nelle
NELLI Vision
Community activists contributing
to further work:
Local meetings
Presentations
Media
ONE
DENHOLME
Walking group
Film club
App/ face book
Website &
newsletter
makeover

Key messages from the programme
• Loneliness kills people and communities
• Regulation kills kindness and reduces action
• Lonely people are vulnerable, this is a safeguarding issue
• Building personal and community confidence builds community
resilience

• The stepping stones to engagement and education need to be put
back
• There is a real contradiction between society’s ideals and
individual experience
• You can take the ideas out of the process.You cannot take the
process away from the ideas
Key messages from the programme

• Our free resource pack is available online; This resource
pack brings together the lessons and experiences from the
programme.
http://www.jrf.org.uk
/publications/loneliness-
resource-pack
Free resources

Anyone can be lonely, even busy people.
Anyone can reduce loneliness – their own or
others
• How do we make every contact count?
• How do we look after the health and wellbeing of our
communities, congregations, colleagues and ourselves?
• How do we give the gift of time when we lead such busy
lives?
• How do we resource prevention in hard times?
• How do we ensure that our community assets are
community hubs used to their full potential and open to
all?
• Let’s see how we can all talk about loneliness
Wot…
no time ?

#unlonelyleeds
BREAK
Tea and Coffee Served in
the Atrium

Connecting People:
Asset-based approaches
to health and social care
#unlonelyleeds

www.SharedLivesPlus.org.uk
www.communitycatalysts.co.uk
Connecting people
Alex Fox, CEO
Shared Lives Plus
http://alexfoxblog.wordpress.com
http://vimeo.com/108993357
Karl and Clare with Shared Lives carers Blossom and Mike,
at their wedding, before moving to live independently
Kent Shared Lives

Personalisation of social care is about choice and control over services, plus more
inclusive communities.
But more success empowering individuals than communities:
• Money does not always equal power. Same old stuff to buy?
• Community is often mistaken for a location when it’s our connections to others.
A good / new service doesn’t guarantee a good life.
Beyond better services

The Care Act: social care’s primary purpose is wellbeing.
Achieving wellbeing is not in services’ gift. We need:
• Commissioning to build marketplace & community assets.
• Interventions to build individual capabilities & resilience.
So for system change we need:
• A new ‘front end’ which is built around community capacity
• Support interventions built around individuals & their networks
Beyond better services

Adult social care system can feel needs-based:
• Up-front eligibility: “Are you vulnerable & needy enough?”
• Up-front means-testing: “Are you poor enough?”
• Medicalised: “We have decided your needs and category.”
• Jargon, complexity: “You need a guide to our care pathway.”
• Maintained dependence: “We can help if you stay ‘critical’.”
A new ‘front end’

We need to move away from ‘pipelines’ and ‘funnels’:
• Informed
• Connected
• Confident
e.g.
• Local Area Coordination
• Care banks and time banks
• ABCD
• Co-production
A new ‘front end’
DanceSyndrome

(Re-)arranging individual support
interventions in support of
informal networks:
• Shared Lives
• Homeshare
• Circles of Support
• Micro-enterprise development
• KeyRing networks
Interventions which build
capabilities and resilience
Shared Lives South West

• The Shared Lives carer’s house feels
like a family home.
• Participants share home and family
life, either living together or through
the adult visiting their Shared Lives
carer regularly.
• Organised by 153 registered local
schemes who recruit, train, support
and monitor Shared Lives carers.
“You see people grow - they blossom.”
Shared Lives

Paul, 50, moved in with Shared Lives carer, Sheila and family
in Birmingham. He bought his first bicycle and enjoys bike
rides with Sheila and her husband, who have helped Paul
become a visible and popular member of the community. He
knows people like local shopkeepers by name and Sheila
encourages everyone to ‘look out for Paul’. Paul has learned
to use public transport and cross roads safely and he can now
walk unaided in his community for the first time. Paul doesn't
have a lot of speech, but when asked what 'independent'
means, he smiles and says 'walk'.
Other stories: the Parker family (the Telegraph): http://goo.gl/gM3Iq;
Nigel and Stephen (the Guardian) http://bit.ly/eqritE
Shared Lives example

‘Peter’, who I support several days a week, is a disabled
man in later life. I really enjoy being in his company and I
think he feels the same. I encourage Peter to decide what
he wants to do and get great satisfaction seeing him
making good sound decisions. Peter visits my home and
has got to know Moira, my boys and my sister and Mum. I
was impressed at how Peter engaged my youngest son
Aaron, bringing Aaron out of his shell.
Allan, retired police officer and Shared Lives carer.
Peter and Allan

• The scheme recruits, trains, approves, supports & monitors
local Shared Lives carers.
• The scheme ensures compliance with CQC care inspections
and housing and insurance regulations and requirements.
• The registered manager of the scheme is ultimately
responsible for quality and safety of care.
• The scheme matches participants and provides alternative
support where a match ends, ensuring continuity of care.
• Shared Lives carers are self-employed, working under
contract to the scheme (and doing much which is unpaid).
The role of the scheme.

Shared Lives outperforms all other forms of regulated care
across all five areas of inspection.
Inspection results
• Safe
• Effective
• Caring
• Responsive
• Well-led

Shared Lives in Leeds
• Shared Lives used by 10,500 people in England.
• 1500 older people, mainly as day support and short breaks.
• Growing by 14% p.a. and strong in the region.
• Higher outcome and lower cost (av £26k pp per year).
• St Anne’s Shared Lives has 70 live-in arrangements
• The council-run Short Breaks Shared Lives service supports
112 people: 1,845 overnights, 820 days.
• Shared Lives carers in the city are aged up to 80.
• Interest in developing a Homeshare schemes as well.

Homeshare
• Like Shared Lives Homeshare is based on matching
• Householder: needs a little help or companionship and has
a spare room. Often an older person.
• Homesharer: has a housing need and can provide a little
support. Often a younger person eg mature student.
• Homesharer pays no rent but helps out for c10 hours p.w.
• Unregulated service (no personal care). We support a
dozen UK schemes (many more in other countries).
• Scheme facilitates match & provides back up.

Interventions to build resilience
• You can’t assume volunteers will appear from nowhere.
• Voluntary action is not necessarily asset-based.
• People interested in helping someone (but not a service).
• More intensive support requires more resourcing/payment.
o Homeshare is low level & lighter touch
o Shared Lives carers combine paid and unpaid
• Provide enough back-up/ structure to enable, not smother.
• Enabling citizen leadership requires sharing power (and £!).

The Building Community Capacity workstrand
published:
A framework for Health and Wellbeing Boards
October 2014
Think Local, Act Personal
www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk
Think Local, Act Personal

Strong inclusive
communities

Alex Fox, CEO,
Shared Lives Plus,
alex@SharedLivesPlus.org.uk
07738641897
http://alexfoxblog.wordpress.com
Twitter: @alexsharedlives
• Can we have a People Powered NHS? RSA: http://bit.ly/1psacBe
• The new social care, RSA: http://goo.gl/6NPnP
• The State of Shared Lives in England: www.SharedLivesPlus.org.uk
Contact details
West Wales Adult
Placement

EXERCISE:
OUTCOME FOR LEEDS – ‘PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT
AGES AND CULTURES HAVING MEANINGFUL
INTERACTION’
http://prezi.com/8ud7n4gwyprc/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=co
py&rc=ex0share
#unlonelyleeds

EXERCISE:
MY ACTION TO MAKE LEEDS A MORE SOCIALLY
CONNECTED CITY
 Fill in some details about yourself on one of the yellow strips.
 On the other side write a pledge of some action you can take to make
Leeds a more socially connected city. This can be from your personal life,
related to an organisation that you are part of, or an action for the city as a
whole.
 Once you have completed your slip make it into a link using one of the
paper clips provided. Then connect it up with the rest of your table to
make a chain.
#unlonelyleeds

#unlonelyleeds
Thank you for
coming

Unloneliness Conference - 20th July 2015

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