CAB Social Work Supplement April 2022
Social Isolation
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Social Isolation: Social Work supplement April 2022
Many of the recent articles are related to covid, but I didn't want to make this all about that so I
have tried to include a wide range of articles - new mums. Intellectual disability, mental health
and the elderly.
A Survey of Befriending Services for People With Intellectual Disabilities in the United
Kingdom. Tse, Cheuk Yin; J of Policy & Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 2021, 18(4), p296-305,
Volunteers experienced unique difficulties in interacting with service users with ID due to physical and
cognitive barriers. More training and support could be provided to volunteers to help them manage
these difficulties and to improve outcomes and experiences of both volunteers and individuals with ID.
A systematic scoping review of community-based interventions for the prevention of mental ill-
health and the promotion of mental health in older adults in the UK. Lee, Caroline; Health &
Social Care in the Community, 2022, 30(1) p27-5. Outcome measurement varied greatly,
confounding strong evidence in favour of particular intervention types. The literature is wide-ranging in
focus and methodology. Greater specificity and consistency in outcome measurement are required to
evidence effectiveness - no single category of intervention yet stands out as 'promising'.
Behavioural activation to prevent depression and loneliness among socially isolated older
people with long-term conditions: The BASIL COVID-19 pilot randomised controlled trial.
Gilbody S; PLoS medicine, 2021. 18 (10).Conclusions: this study, observed that BA is a credible
intervention to mitigate the psychological impacts of COVID-19 isolation for older adults. The
intervention can be delivered remotely and at scale, but should be reserved for older adults with
evidence of depressive symptoms.
Connecting communities: A qualitative investigation of the challenges in delivering a national
social prescribing service to reduce loneliness. Holding E; Health & social care in the community
2020 28 (5), pp. 1535-1543 This paper is one of the first of its kind to describe elements of an
evaluation of a large-scale national social prescribing scheme to reduce loneliness, deploying
individual link workers to signpost people to community activities. There was evidence that highly
skilled link workers who had developed positive relationships with providers and service-users were
key to the success of the intervention.
Exploring the potential for social prescribing in pre-hospital emergency and urgent care: A
qualitative study.Scott, Jason; Health & Social Care in the Community, 2021; 29(3): 654-663.
Determinants of social prescribing were identified across the micro (patient and staff acceptability of
social prescribing), meso (triage and referral pathways) and macro (commissioning and funding)
levels of analysis
Frequent callers to UK ambulance services in the COVID-19 pandemic: managing mental
health, social isolation and loneliness. Scott, Jason. Br. Paramedic Journal, 2021, 6(2) p66-75,
Ambulance services are observing changes to the frequent caller population, with many new frequent
callers due to health anxiety caused or exacerbated by the pandemic. Management of frequent callers
is also changing, with multidisciplinary and multi-agency working becoming more challenging due to
decreased access to external services, whether in social care or the community and voluntary sector,
and the redeployment of ambulance service staff.