Where: Online – You can find the MS Teams link when registering via our Eventbrite page here.

Target Audience: NHS trusts, public health teams, social prescribing services, CAHMS, education colleagues, healthcare providers & services, voluntary sector organisations and stakeholders with an interest in developing a greater understanding of loneliness and delivering effective responses.

The Webinar aims to address the following questions:

• What is loneliness and why is it so devastating for people and society?
• Why do we assume it only impacts on older people?

To register your place, please go to our Eventbrite page here.

January is frequently referred to as the most depressing month of the year, so much so the third Monday of January has acquired the name Blue Monday, the timing of this webinar is therefore particularly pertinent in terms of the loneliness theme. Both the January weather and Christmas itself are catalysts for a heightened sense of loneliness and despair. This Covid-19 Christmas can only be seen as an accelerator in this context, because people are having to make choices not to be with loved ones, or don't have people to be around or they are simply feeling detached.

We are therefore absolutely delighted to announce our team of expert presenters for our first webinar of 2021. These include:

Professor Pamela Qualter

Pamela is a Professor of Psychology for Education at the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester. She has had a long standing research interest in the social experiences of young people in school, and is an expert on loneliness and social disconnection among children and adolescents. In 2018 she launched the BBC Loneliness Experiment in collaboration with Claudia Hammond and Geraldine Fitzpatrick on BBC Radio 4. This on-line study of loneliness reached resulted in over 55,000 responses providing huge insight in to some key questions to help tackle loneliness. In 2020, she undertook further research on the impact of Covid 19 on young people. She and she will also share early findings. Pamela will look at what loneliness is and how it manifests itself and what this means for health. She will also examine both structural and subjective experiences of loneliness.

Rosie Mansfield

Rosie Mansfield is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at University College London, investigating the association between social isolation, loneliness and wellbeing across the life course and between five successive British birth cohort studies. She is currently working on a ESRC funded project as part of their Secondary Data Analysis Initiative. This is the first large-scale study of social isolation, loneliness and between five successive British birth cohort studies. As one of the largest studies in the UK, this project will provide national-level, empirical evidence on the extent of social isolation and loneliness, associations with subjective wellbeing, and how these experiences have changed over time and generations. Rosie will provide an overview of the cohort studies, including the recent Covid-19 surveys, and will demonstrate the value of taking a life course approach to research.   

Olivia Field

Olivia is Head of Health and Resilience Policy at the  British Red Cross. She will take delegates through their latest report, Loneliness before, now and after the Covid-19 emergency and the findings. Olivia will consider the impact of loneliness on individuals and society, and what Covid-19 could mean for national action on loneliness. She will begin with a reminder, loneliness isn’t new but Covid-19 is making more of us worry about it and what this means for society.

Join us to explore some key questions and help build a conversation to address the challenges loneliness presents for everyone whatever their age.

Contact - polly.james@hee.nhs.uk