Learning from Lockdown: Employment & social isolation in Lambeth
Dr Jon Bashford, Research Programme Director, and Rahim Daya, Senior Programme Manager at Breaking Barriers Innovations have conducted a strategic mapping for a programme of work aimed at reducing the health and social harms associated with unemployment and being socially isolated and lonely in Lambeth.
The report is the result of 20+ interviews with a range of stakeholders in Lambeth from across NHS health care providers and commissioners, local government and the community and voluntary sector with broad consensus amongst stakeholders that social isolation and loneliness is affecting more people in Lambeth because of the pandemic and that it is important to address this within the context of employment and skills support. In particular, the core thematic areas of concern include:
- Work readiness – loss of confidence and soft skills
- Communication and digital exclusion
- Signposting services and social prescribing
- In work experience
- Lived experience and co-production
- Role of anchor institutions and social value impact
The report concludes with recommendations around:
- An anchor strategy that can support the work to tackle social isolation and loneliness
- Identifying a number of groups who are thought to be more affected by social isolation and loneliness to be priority groups for a lived experience programme;
- Working with the equality leads across the NHS providers to design a pilot learning programme for social isolation and loneliness that encompasses recruitment of those groups furthest away from employment as a result of being socially isolated
To find out more about this report or our wider work, please contact rahim.daya@bbi.uk.com.
Jon Bashford is Research Programme Director at BBI, and is an experienced senior manager, researcher and teacher with over 30 years’ experience working in health, social care and education in the public, independent and voluntary sectors.
Rahim Daya is a Senior Programme Manager at BBI and has worked on a number of health and social care projects since joining BBI, including with NHS West Lancashire CCG on the relationship between poor quality housing and population health outcomes