Tackling youth loneliness at heart of special workshop

Dozens of youth workers and young people gathered in Nottingham with one aim – to tackle youth loneliness.

The Belong Collective event saw staff from a range of organisations working with young people across Nottingham gather at the city’s National Ice Centre to learn more about youth loneliness and develop ways of tackling it.

The Belong Collective – led by national youth work charity UK Youth in partnership with Youth Focus: North East and funded by the Astra Foundation and Co-op Foundation – is a cross-sector network focused on connecting practitioners to share learning, challenges, good practice, and new thinking about youth loneliness.

Rania Hamdi, UK Youth project manager, said: “The event was about bringing together young people and cross-sector professionals, to discuss and talk about youth loneliness and the issues at the moment and think of best ways to work together in the future to tackle the issue.

“We had practitioners, cross-sector professionals, come together to talk about their practice, what they’re doing and actually, if they’re not doing anything, what would they like to do, to better support young people who might be feeling lonely or isolated.

“Youth loneliness is huge, a lot bigger than people realise. Young people are the age group at the highest risk of being affected by loneliness, more than any other age group. There’s an assumption and stereotype that loneliness only affects older people, but actually young people really need support in this area.”

Research has found that four out of five young people have experienced loneliness at some point, while 82 per cent of youth workers feel loneliness particularly affects young people they work with.

As well as a session for youth practitioners, the event also saw a workshop for young people, featuring crafts and discussion about loneliness, including creating a map of shared interests, highlighting their connections with each other.

Rania said: “We’ve had a lot of young people collaborate in the Belong Collective, creating resources and social action projects about the movement,

“It’s been an eye-opening event. Nottingham is really interesting, because we’ve had such a variety of different people from different experiences come along to talk about youth loneliness,.

“Having that opportunity for people to sit down and talk about their experiences and realities working with young people has been so beneficial.

“The purpose of the event is not necessarily to come out with solutions automatically, that takes time, but it’s starting the steps we need to start supporting young people who might be feeling lonely.”

Among those present at the event was Natalie Perminas, an NHS Talking Therapies link worker at Nottingham’s St Ann’s Advice Centre.

She said: “It was good to find out who we can signpost to and refer to when we get young people in the centre that need support.

“I found it really interesting. I learnt about loneliness in youth, how to help them, who to signpost to when they do need support, so we know the right services for them.

“I feel quite motivated to have some youth provision in our services. I’d like to open our doors to youths and be a welcoming site that’s safe for young people in the area.

“We do work with older people, with benefits and debt advice, but we have got a safe centre and I feel if we were recognised as a safe place for young people to come, they could approach us and we could signpost them onto relevant services.”

UK Youth is a leading charity with a vision that all young people are equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives. With an open network of more than 8,000 youth organisations and nation partners; UK Youth reaches more than four million young people across the UK and is focused on unlocking youth work as the catalyst of change that is needed now more than ever. To find out more, visit ukyouth.org 

UK Youth is involved in a range of programmes designed to help young people thrive, such as outdoor learning, physical literacy, social action and employability, including Hatch, a youth employability programme run in partnership with KFC. For more on UK Youth’s programmes, see ukyouth.org/what-we-do/programmes