Celebrating Loneliness Awareness Week 2024

Loneliness Awareness Week is an opportunity to encourage everyone to increase those simple, everyday moments of connection that help us feel happier and less lonely.

Hosted by Marmalade Trust - the UK’s leading loneliness charity offering support for all ages and the only charity in the world specifically dedicated to raising awareness of loneliness - the campaign is a week dedicated to raising awareness of loneliness.

That’s why we’re pleased to present three new Housing LIN guest blogs that highlight key themes around loneliness and isolation:

• Working Together to Tackle Loneliness
  This blog written by Sarah Mitton, Age Friendly Communities Manager at Clarion Futures, shares some of the ways in which Clarion is seeking to tackle the loneliness epidemic and inspire other housing providers to think about the role they can play in bettering the experience of our diverse communities.
   
• Resetting communal spaces – enabling the residents we would most like to engage to use and make the most of their communal spaces
  This Housing LIN blog, written by Jo Stapleton, Partner on the Good Practice Mentors Programme at Age UK Camden, discusses how communal spaces in housing communities, such as residents' rooms, gardens and informal seating areas, are often underutilised by those who housing staff aim to engage, as well as tips to overcome this.
   
• Loneliness and the Built Environment: Towards Compassionate Places
  This blog written by Natasha Reid, founder of MATTER SPACE SOUL, reflects on developing new approaches to tackle loneliness through the built environment, including spatial design, placemaking policy and film. She asks “can compassion be built into the foundations of places as the new standard”?

For more information on combating loneliness and reducing social isolation, please visit our resource hub supported by Clarion Housing Group. These webpages showcase relevant guidance, useful research findings and examples of services and innovative projects that offer practical solutions for combatting loneliness and reducing social isolation.

If you would like to participate in Loneliness Awareness Week, you can use the hashtags #RandomActsOfConnection and #LonelinessAwarenessWeek to share your experiences of loneliness. By sharing your story, you can contribute to the momentum of the campaign and help create a more connected society.