PROJECT: How might we develop service propositions that can tackle the
challenge of loneliness in present London and project a vision of
how to develop systemic interventions into the future?
challenge of loneliness in present London and project a vision of
how to develop systemic interventions into the future?
CLIENT: RCA/ Ealing Council
RCA GROUP: Ally Rosam, Judith Buhmann, Shutong Guo, Bianca Benvenuto
The Brief:
Develop service propositions that through harnessing people’s assets, motivations and
skills, can tackle the challenge of loneliness in present London and project a vision of how to develop systemic interventions into the future.
This project aims to explore the challenge of loneliness in London today and create services that
can both tackle the present challenge and establish transformation pathways into the future.
skills, can tackle the challenge of loneliness in present London and project a vision of how to develop systemic interventions into the future.
This project aims to explore the challenge of loneliness in London today and create services that
can both tackle the present challenge and establish transformation pathways into the future.
The Design Problem:
Our primary and secondary research led us to hypothesis that during middle age women in particular are at risk of accumulating risk factors which may make them more susceptible to becoming chronically lonely in older age (potentially leading to social isolation). This led us to explore the importance of role and identity; lack of identity or lack of clarity over assigned roles for example caused by a life transition was a key transition for loneliness. When a person’s identity or role was disrupted by an expected or sudden life event, this could cause an old identity to fall away and a new one with added responsibilities and burdens to appear. This sometimes negatively affected the social connections of an individual – their friendships, acquaintances, family and colleagues.
This led us to our opportunity statement
'How might we intervene in the current ecosystem of service providers and women in Southall to bring them together and improve and increase connections between them?'
The process:
Once we have synthesised our primary and secondary research we began generating ideas and validating these with all of the stakeholders involved.
The output:
Adopting a double sided approach to enable the Southall Community Alliance and service providers to work collaboratively to reach the wider community. Provide better access to existing services by understanding the motivations, interests and needs of the wider community. Help service providers improve current services or create new ones based on meaningful insights, thus improving the likelihood of service users making meaningful connections with others in their local community.
'Bridging Southall' is a transformational programme to create a better, more connected community through incremental and continuous systemic change. By connecting interested groups and enabling people to share their knowledge and experience, they will be able to learn and capture valuable insights. Based on these insights, they will run groups and events which will engage and speak to the local community in a more meaningful and personal way and help people to connect with each other.
