At the beginning of 2019, we secured £99,555 from the National Lottery Community Fund’s Building Connections Fund, to help support and inspire more local action to ‘turbo-charge’ the county’s response to tackling loneliness.

The Loneliness Campaign North Yorkshire was also backed by North Yorkshire Council with in-kind support from the Public Health and Stronger Communities teams, as well as funding through the Stronger Communities Fund.
Throughout the project, we worked with a steering group of voluntary and community sector organisations, public sector partners and private businesses to develop a North Yorkshire wide, all ages, strategy for tackling loneliness (Be Social, Be Well) and supporting action plan.

Before coming to a close in March 2021, the project also produced a series of campaigns and resources to help raise awareness and enable people to take simple actions to tackle loneliness in their communities. These are still available to access and share below.

Be Social, Be Well is the strategy developed through the project which aims to tackle loneliness and social isolation in North Yorkshire. Based on an extensive review of existing literature and research, Be Social, Be Well includes a number of personal stories demonstrating loneliness as lived by people in the county, and a focus on some of the many services available across North Yorkshire which can reduce or prevent loneliness and isolation.

Be Social, Be Well incorporates a framework for action which seeks to inspire everyone to tackle loneliness, helping to build resilience and make use of existing assets to ensure early intervention and foster a preventative approach. This framework is based on five strategic ambitions:

• Eliminate stigma
• Make connection easier
• Kindness in communities
• Foster meaningful relationships
• Build enlightened services

These strategic ambitions formed the basis of an action plan, to which a number of partners across the county are committed and which can be used as a checklist to underpin service development and delivery by any organisation looking to reduce loneliness among their communities and/or client base.

Read more in our Be Social, Be Well strategy document, or download a summary here.

With more people working from home, there are less opportunities for face-to-face contact, leaving some people feeling more isolated and alone. We’ve brought together some useful resources to help address workplace loneliness and practical tips on tackling the problem.

Volunteering can help us to increase our own social connectedness and support others who may be experiencing loneliness. Find out more about how volunteering can help to alleviate loneliness and social isolation, listen to inspiring volunteers talk about their own experiences and download our resources on staying connected during paused volunteering here.

Youth loneliness can be stigmatising, hidden and disregarded. Designed in consultation with young people from across North Yorkshire, our youth loneliness campaign – Stand up to Youth Loneliness – aimed at tackling the stigma around loneliness in young people and gave them a voice to talk about it. Find out more and download resources here.

We have created a collection of different peoples’ experiences of loneliness both before and during the Covid-19 lockdown, with the aim of encouraging more honest conversations around the realities of isolation and loneliness across North Yorkshire.

Hear the voices we’ve collected here.

A fun, free and practical online quiz to help people think about their risk of loneliness in later life.

A collection of free online resources to help support communities, parishes, villages and neighbourhoods encourage conversation and initiate social action.

Designed to help people during the coronavirus pandemic. You can also find some further guides and information about supporting people who may be lonely during a lockdown on here.

Be Social, Be Well in the Harrogate District shows how area has created their own strategy for tackling loneliness using the 5 Strategic Ambitions.