The Covid-19 pandemic has been a time of great change and challenge for combatting loneliness. At NPC we’ve been working with grant holders of the Building Connections Fund to understand how they have been adapting, the effect on service users of the changes they’ve made, and what they’ve learnt from a time of unprecedented upheaval.

The Building Connections Fund was an £11.5 million joint initiative by the government, the National Lottery Community Fund and the Co-Op Foundation to reduce loneliness, which was set up in response to the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission. All quotes in this blog are from BCF grant holders.

Lockdown has intensified loneliness, with many vulnerable people feeling forgotten. Grant holders have learnt a lot about adapting to support service users and sustain engagement. The six big lessons we’ve learnt are:

  1. Support service users to increase their engagement with online activities
  2. Put appropriate safeguarding and privacy measures in place for online activities
  3. Offer choice to meet different service users’ needs
  4. Provide regular, consistent, reliable support to service users
  5. Collaborate with local actors to avoid duplication
  6. Respond to changing user needs and different social distancing restrictions

Read the full article about COVID-19 and loneliness by Will Hanford-Spira at NPC.