Blue Monday has turned an array of colours

Since March 2021, 36 Thriving Communities projects have been offering vital social prescribing support to those facing some of Covid-19’s greatest challenges, including loneliness and isolation, and long-term health conditions. 

Working within the fast-evolving landscape of the pandemic has been no mean feat, and so we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the important work that has been achieved so far. From the importance of link workers (the people in the community who connect with someone referred for social prescribing, talk through their needs and advise what activities might suit them best) to the incredible role that volunteers play in engaging and delivering social prescribing offers in their local areas. There’s also the way local projects have ensured that prescribed activity is appropriate for a participant’s needs,  tailoring the offer and co-designing the programmes with those taking part.  Projects are recognising and adapting to link workers to deliver a range of activities, such as nature walks, creative journaling, dementia swimming and photography.  

The projects are also underpinned by varied partnerships, such as Delapre Abbey & Park which benefits from working with Northampton Wellbeing Partnership, Warts & All Theatre, Northampton Leisure Trust and the local university.  

Some projects are trailblazing in the offer they are providing to multilingual communities. Wellbeing Prescribing, led by Slough CVS, has enabled a befriending scheme working with people facing isolation and loneliness. They offer support from 40 Wellbeing Friends in 9 different languages, while also providing cultural dance sessions and physical activity offers. 

Meanwhile, St Margaret’s House in London demonstrate how the use of their community spaces have drawn in people from the community who may never have visited those spaces before. They’ve worked particularly hard to align their offer and approaches to attract those who may feel social prescribing is not for them by offering  classes, workshops, talks and events in yoga, Pilates, dance, diet, acupuncture and more.

Heeley Development Trust, based in Sheffield, have been helping people reconnect through creative, green and physical activities. As the film shows, their incredible work and engagement of volunteers in the local social prescribing offer, has empowered those in the community who want to shape their local social prescribing provision. 

Having to consider whether, and how, to deliver activities online or in-person has seen the projects evolve their ways of working and collective thinking, to make sure that a social prescribing offer is still accessible throughout the uncertainty of Covid-19. And as a further result of the pandemic, 16 of the 36 projects are extending their work up until June 2022. 

I’ve heard so much feedback about how taking part in their local social prescribing offer has improved people’s lives and helped them rediscover a sense of value and purpose. One project told me about a patient who regularly called the emergency services, but following a social prescription, they’re not only taking part in their local sessions, but running the social prescribing offer in their area. Another project participant detailed how she had reached a point of loneliness which fed her mental health condition. She explained that taking part in the social prescribing offer in effect saved her life - she now felt she was living, rather than existing, due to the support from the local community centre offering the sessions. 

These personal stories are at the heart of what the Thriving Communities Fund has been aiming to achieve. In the meantime, the projects continue supporting their communities and a full Thriving Communities Fund evaluation is due this summer 2022, so watch this space!