Agenda item

The Director of City Services referred to the following Motion which had been proposed by Councillor Mullan and seconded by Alderman Spence at the January meeting of the Council:

“This Council notes with concern the impact that inter-generational loneliness and social isolation is having across the City.

The Council recognises the good work already being done in the Council to address these problems but acknowledges that more needs to be done.  Other agencies, such as Age NI, the Red Cross and the Campaign to End Loneliness are also recognising loneliness as a significant emerging issue.

Due to the Northern Ireland Assembly not currently functioning, we are now falling behind other administrations in addressing these problems at an Executive level.

Accordingly, the Council agrees to consider how best it can develop an inter-agency approach to address the problems, including working with partner agencies in the statutory, community and voluntary sectors.”

            She then proceeded to provide a detailed of overview of the ongoing work which the Council was currently involved with. 

            The Committee noted that through the following two work streams much was being done to increase the availability of support to older people in an attempt to reduce loneliness:

·        Age-friendly Belfast Plan 2018-2021; and

·        Citywide Group on Reducing Isolation and Loneliness.

            The Director advised that, through the Belfast Agenda, the Council was committed to ensuring an Age-friendly Belfast.  She reminded the Committee that the second Citywide Partnership Plan Age-friendly Belfast Plan 2019-2021 had been launched last year with the thematic areas Partnership, Infrastructure, Social Inclusion, Health and Wellbeing and Financial Security.

            She then referred to the Citywide group on reducing isolation and loneliness.  As part of the previous Age-friendly Plan, a sub-group of the Healthy Ageing Strategic Partnership had been established in March 2017 to look at isolation and loneliness and she detailed its membership.  The current actions for that group were as follows:

·        to increase the availability of befriending and other services to reduce loneliness in older people;

·        to carry out a needs analysis and pilot training for key staff and volunteers on reducing isolations and loneliness in older people;

·        to develop and test systematic referral pathways to connect older people to services that they needed; and

·        to map isolation and loneliness amongst older people in Belfast.

            The Committee noted that, whilst the work under the Age-friendly Belfast Plan mainly focused on older people, loneliness was an issue for all ages.  The Director reported that Linking Generations NI was a member of the Healthy Ageing Strategic Partnership and was working to establish a Belfast Intergenerational Network to support Integration Work across the City.

            The Director advised that the Citywide Group was hosting a ‘Morning of Action on Loneliness’ in the City Hall on Monday, 17th June, to highlight both the problems and indeed the many programmes and facilities that were available to help and encourage people to connect.  The event would strive to ensure negative stereotypes were not used and would actively assist in de-stigmatising loneliness.  She advised the Members that they would receive an invitation to attend and she encouraged them to actively promote the event.

            The Committee noted the ongoing work to address loneliness within the Council and Belfast Strategic Partnership and agreed to support the ‘Morning of Action on Loneliness’ event in the City Hall.