Practice
Guidance index
Everything the Institute has published for practitioners. 219documents, most recent first.
2025
How to Report Attrition Without Burying It or Weaponising It
A practice note on presenting dropout data in social prescribing and connection programme reports so it strengthens your case to funders rather than undermining it.
Social Prescribing Builds Referrals, Not Necessarily Communities
Most social prescribing pathways end at the referral. A framework for distinguishing a service that delivers contact from a community that sustains it, and why the difference determines what your outcomes data will show.
Knowing When to Close a Group, Not Just How to Start One
A practical checklist for deciding whether a running social connection programme should be closed, merged, or restructured — and the failure mode that keeps dying groups open.
The Retention Cliff: Where Attendance Actually Collapses
Funders track enrolment; programmes die on the specific week attendance falls off a cliff. What the social prescribing evidence can and cannot tell you about when that happens, and what to fund instead.
Who Doesn't Walk Through Your Door, and Why
Most social prescribing referrals reach people who already have some capacity to seek help. A practice note on redesigning recruitment so it finds the people who won't.
Designing the Handoff: Referral Pathways From Work Into Social Connection Support
Most workplace referrals into social prescribing or community programmes fail at the handoff, not at the point of need. A framework for designing the pathway so the referral survives contact with the next service.
Before You Borrow a Loneliness Programme, Check Who It Was Built For
Programmes built for isolated older adults get repurposed for lonely young adults, remote workers, and new parents all the time. The mechanism that made the original work often doesn't survive the transfer.
Give People a Job, Not Just a Seat: Roles Inside Social Prescribing Groups
Most social prescribing groups collapse once novelty wears off because attendance is passive. Assigning roles inside the group is a cheap, testable fix — here's how to structure it.
What HINTS-6 Changes About Training Frontline Staff on Loneliness
A new federal estimate splits loneliness into severity states. That distinction should change the script link workers, receptionists, and community staff use — not just the statistic they cite.
Reach Metrics Tell You Who You Missed, Not Whether It Worked
Attendance counts and outcome scores answer different questions. A practice note on why training programmes need both, and what happens when they collect only one.
The Denominator Problem: What Attrition Numbers Actually Mislead
Most attrition figures in connection programme reports answer the wrong question. A guide to choosing the right denominator and reporting dropout in a way a funder can actually use.
Should Your Group Meet Online, In Person, or Both
A practice note for programme managers deciding format for a peer or interest group: what digital delivery actually trades away, when it's the right call anyway, and how to avoid running a group that is neither.
How Informal Connection Programmes Handle Safeguarding Without Killing the Informality
Volunteer-led social groups sit awkwardly between clinical services and pure informality. A look at how organisations in this space have set safeguarding thresholds, trained non-professional facilitators, and decided what a volunteer is not responsible for.
Why Drop-In Social Groups Look Successful Right Up Until They Collapse
Attendance and satisfaction scores make a struggling social group look fine for months. A practice note on the measurement gap that lets the fourth-session cliff go unnoticed until the group is gone.
The Venue Decision Nobody Budgets Time For
Where a group meets, how easy it is to reach, and whether the room stays the same each week shape attendance more than the programme content does. A practical look at the logistics that get treated as afterthoughts.
A Referral Is Not a Membership
Social prescribing schemes often refer people into activities that function as services with attendees, not communities with members. That distinction predicts whether the referral holds after week six.
When a Commissioner Asks for Loneliness Outcomes You Cannot Promise
A funder or commissioner wants a defined reduction in loneliness or isolation from a social prescribing referral pathway. Here is how to respond when the evidence does not support that ask, without either overselling or refusing the work.
What to Measure When Your Connection Programme Runs on Volunteers
If your befriending, mentoring, or visiting programme depends on volunteers, your evaluation plan has to track the volunteer pipeline as closely as the outcomes — because attrition there is usually what breaks the results.
AARP's New Loneliness Data Is Another Argument Against Generic Referrals
AARP's 2025 follow-up survey shows loneliness among adults 45-plus rising, not falling. The operational fix isn't more referrals to social activities — it's matching the intervention to which kind of disconnection someone actually has.
Building an Honest Cost Case for a Connection Programme
How to make a defensible financial case for a social connection programme to a funder, without overstating savings the evidence cannot yet support.
The Fidelity Metrics That Catch a Programme Drifting as It Scales
A new study on third-place closures shows why a connection programme that worked in one place can fail in another. Here's what to measure before and during rollout to catch the drift early.
The First Four Weeks: Sequencing a Connection Programme So It Survives Contact With Reality
A week-by-week sequence for launching a social connection programme, built around the point where most attendance collapses and what to do before you get there.
Evaluating Connection Training Without a Research Budget
A practical design for evaluating staff training in social connection skills, built around what a programme team can actually measure without a control group or a grant for a trial.
Choosing Outcome Measures a Workplace Commissioner Will Actually Accept
A sequenced approach to picking loneliness and connection metrics for a workplace programme that will survive scrutiny from finance, HR leadership, or an external commissioner — not just a satisfaction survey.