My new job involves teaching new dogs old tricks. (See what I did there?)

Once knowledge is embedded it’s easy to forget you needed to learn something yourself.  For LOPF the seven years of Time to Shine (as part of the Ageing Better programme) left us with a lot of embedded learning. I started to share the learning last year, as a Good Practice Mentor, and throughout the year became more and more aware that the arrival of lots of fantastic new staff across the third sector in Leeds meant that many of them wanted to know more. I stopped worrying about teaching people things they already knew, as I realised not all of them did.

They did want to know more about how social isolation and loneliness affects people, and about the ways they could work to help reduce it through their own good practice. They needed to know what the barriers for older people might be, and why some people had problems in their 50s whilst others were still very active at 80. They needed to know how to find and engage older people across the city as, I imagine, do staff and volunteers in other parts of the UK

As part of Loneliness Awareness Week – 12-18 June – (run by the Marmalade Trust) I will re-run a short a series of short webinars from earlier this year and, now I’m part of a team, there will be sessions from Jo Stapleton (Age UK Camden)  on  ‘informal conversational strategies to talk about loneliness and isolation and provide a nudge towards participation’,  and  ‘addressing barriers to participation via outreach comms’.  We also aim to run an introductory session where you can meet all of the Good Practice Mentor team and learn more about how we can help your organisation.

Book your places on any of these free events.

Please get in touch if you would like to know what else we can offer, or to ask about booking a bespoke course for your organisation.

Jessica Duffy
Good practice Mentor
jessica@opforum.org.uk