Guidance for the peoplewho have to run something
The Institute turns research on social connection into programme design, referral pathways and evaluation that practitioners can actually use.
Latest guidance
All practice notesGuidance is being prepared.
Frameworks
All frameworks- 01
Designing Groups That Survive Week Four
Most connection programmes do not fail at recruitment. They fail between the third and fifth session, and the causes are structural rather than motivational.
Areas of practice
- Programme DesignDesigning something people actually turn up to, twice.
- Health & Care SystemsScreening, referral, and where connection fits in a care pathway.
- WorkplaceWhat employers can change, and what they cannot.
- Community PracticeRunning groups, spaces, and gatherings that hold together.
- Measurement & EvaluationProving a programme worked, to a funder who is sceptical.
- Social PrescribingThe referral model, its evidence base, and its open questions.
- Training & CapabilityBuilding the skills a connection programme depends on.
- Funding & CommissioningMaking the case, and writing it in a commissioner’s language.
Evidence base
Full libraryFortune, 2026
America Is Running Out of Places to Hang Out as Movie Theaters, Bars, Diners and Bowling Alleys Drop to All-Time Low
This is useful context for anyone designing community infrastructure or social connection interventions: it documents the erosion of informal, low-cost gathering spaces that programmes often assume still exist. Readers should treat the cost narrative as the reporter's explanatory frame rather than a tested causal finding, and look to dedicated research for mechanisms behind the decline.
University of Bristol and Nature Communications, 2026
Loneliness Strongly Linked to Poorer Mental Health and Wellbeing
This adds to the evidence base establishing loneliness as a determinant of health outcomes, which matters for anyone building the case for social connection interventions to funders or health commissioners. The findings describe association, not mechanism or intervention effect, so they should be read as motivation for action rather than evidence of what works.
Axios, 2026
A Loneliness Epidemic Meets Uneven Social Infrastructure
Useful as framing context for why place-based social infrastructure matters, but it is journalism connecting existing datasets rather than new primary research; treat the geographic pattern as a lead for further investigation, not a finding on its own.