England & Wales Communities and society, Health and social care

Webinar: Tackling Loneliness Through Asset Based Community Development

Join us in this webinar where we look at the growing problem of loneliness amongst the elderly and how by addressing the strengths of any community through asset building then effective solutions can be found.

Tackling growing problems like loneliness, especially amongst the elderly, can be enhanced by developing placed based services that engage the statutory agencies and the voluntary sector working together at a local level.

But working together first requires identifying what the problem is within any community and assessing the strengths of that community in the place where the service delivery takes place. Having some sort of audit of a location can help services to be more effectively tailored to both need and opportunity. It also helps us to move from “fixing” problems to discovering what can be done together.

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is one way to find out the strengths of any community, what resources there are, what skills and knowledge local people have and what capacity there is to engage a problem or a challenge. It is also a way to lay the foundation to build social capital and of moving from tackling loneliness to promoting usefulness and community connection.

In this Webinar Shaun Burnett from Nurture Development will take us through what ABCD means and how it can be applied to tackling a problem like loneliness.

He will also look at how building community in neighbourhoods can create, home-grown, citizen-led solutions to tackling loneliness and isolation.

Shaun Burnett is the Community Building Programme Manager for Nurture Development. Drawing on practical experience of community building at street level, he provides mentoring and training to community building initiatives across the UK. He has a passion for community-driven change, in particular, how communities harness and nurture the energy of young people to drive change.

With a varied background, Shaun’s previous experiences include stabilisation at a local level in Afghanistan and youth work in various settings including working with young people with disabilities. His experience to date has left him with the firm notion that ‘the wise need the young, as much as the young need the wise.’

Speakers:: Shaun Burnett is the Community Building Programme Manager for Nurture Development. Drawing on practical experience of community building at street level, he provides mentoring and training to community building initiatives across the UK. He has a passion for community-driven change, in particular, how communities harness and nurture the energy of young people to drive change.

With a varied background, Shaun’s previous experiences include stabilisation at a local level in Afghanistan and youth work in various settings including working with young people with disabilities. His experience to date has left him with the firm notion that ‘the wise need the young, as much as the young need the wise.’

Who should attend?: This workshop provides a meeting point for leading stakeholder and community engagement leaders and professionals, sharing knowledge, tools and strategies to achieve success in creating mutually beneficial outcomes for both themselves, their stakeholders and the communities in which they operate. It will be of value to those working in local authorities, colleges and the voluntary sector and who are engaged in building bridges across communities.