Our focus over the last 10 months has been on how the pandemic, and its social and economic consequences, have affected wellbeing – and what a wellbeing-centred recovery means.
This year we will continue or focus on working age wellbeing; community and connection; and methodology – how we know – to understand what government, communities and businesses can do to protect and improve wellbeing.
Here is a preview of some of our work in 2021.
Our social relationships – of all kinds – are essential for our overall wellbeing as communities, individuals and as a nation. This has been highlighted by the pandemic.
Having someone to rely on in times of trouble is the number one determinant of high wellbeing in nations. Taking action to tackle loneliness and to improve the evidence base around effective interventions, through shared learning, is necessary and needs sustained effort.
To continue this effort, we are delighted to be formally working more closely with the Campaign to End Loneliness. We have worked hard to be complementary to each other in our contributions to action and knowledge on loneliness, civil society, community and connection and we are now able to bring these together.
With the Centre’s support, the Campaign will now expand its focus to loneliness across the life course: reducing loneliness in children, young people, and working age adults, as well as people in later life.
To make our new work programme as impactful as possible, we are recruiting:
Working in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, we will also be sharing a new support network, information centre, and community of practice for anyone – in any sector – working to reduce loneliness. Sign up for updates to hear when this is launched in the coming months.
Improving methods and measures
We are supporting the publication of the new Valuation of Wellbeing Supplementary Guidance to the HM Treasury Green Book: appraisal and evaluation in central government. Read more about how our evidence has informed the Green Book and guidance.
We are working with the Children’s Society with funding from the Health Foundation, to publish a bank of questions and indicators for children’s wellbeing, looking at all aspects of what matters to young people and the best tools currently available to measure this.
We will be producing some new guidance for charities and funders on how to bring together and understand case study evidence.
In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a refreshed version of our popular wellbeing evaluation guide for charities and social enterprises, with a brand new measures bank.
While social distancing has kept us all physically apart, community support has been more vital than ever. We are starting work on an exciting project – Different People, Same Place – with Birmingham and Warwick Universities, to understand and articulate how the wellbeing of people and the wellbeing of the collective communities we live in are related to one another.
This year we will start to see the first papers from our ESRC-funded data analysis projects projects, looking at loneliness and social prescribing interventions that can improve wellbeing.
Are you developing new policies to tackle inequality, refreshing your Health and Wellbeing Strategy, or updating a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment? Our Local Government specialist is bringing together a learning community to share the evidence, data and practice to help maximise the wellbeing impact of local government policy. We will be sharing more in the coming weeks, but you can get in touch with joanne.smithson@whatworkswellbeing.org to get more information and discuss getting involved.
We will be running more of our popular Business Leaders’ Council webinars, and have already lined up guest speakers from The Carnegie UK Trust and the Money and Pensions Service, with whom we supported to produce the Financial Wellbeing Strategy UK. Sign up to our email alert to find out when the next webinars are happening.
We will also continue developing the Workplace Wellbeing Question Bank, tailoring it to specific occupational groups, prioritising care workers, construction workers, teachers and teaching assistants, plus freelancers and the self-employed.
For staff and teams working in local government, in February we will be offering a webinar on evidence-informed approaches to supporting and protecting wellbeing in the workplace. Sign up to our email alert to reserve a place as soon as they become available.
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