Practice
Guidance index
Everything the Institute has published for practitioners. 219documents, most recent first.
2024
Training Frontline Staff on Loneliness: What to Say and What Not to Say
A look at how social prescribing and health-system programmes have approached the specific problem of language: how frontline staff should raise loneliness with someone, and the phrases that undermine trust before the conversation starts.
The Drop-In Group Referral: Why It Fails at Week Four
A post-mortem on the most common social prescribing referral -- a one-time signpost to an open drop-in group -- and why attendance collapses within a month.
Who Holds a Workplace Group Together: A Role Audit for Peer Groups and ERGs
A practical way to evaluate whether a workplace connection group has the roles it needs to survive past its founder — with the measures to track and the table to bring to a funder.
How to Measure Who Social Prescribing Actually Reaches
A procedure for tracking reach alongside outcomes in social prescribing, so a scheme that works well for the people it enrols doesn't get mistaken for a scheme that works well for the people it was meant to enrol.
Designing the Handoff: A Framework for Referral Pathways Into Connection Services
Most social prescribing pathways fail at the handoff, not the intervention. A working framework for designing the moment a referral becomes an actual first contact.
How to Script Loneliness Conversations Without Making Them Worse
What to train link workers, receptionists, and support staff to say when someone discloses loneliness — and the three phrases that reliably shut disclosure down.
What Social Prescribing Evaluations Actually Measure, and What to Copy
Published reviews of social prescribing evaluations show a narrow, workable set of measurement choices. Here is what to take from them when designing an evaluation you can run with the staff and time you actually have.
How to Match a Connection Intervention to the Actual Deficit
A procedure for diagnosing what kind of social disconnection someone actually has before assigning a group, an activity, or a referral — because the wrong match wastes both the budget and the person's last attempt.
Who Pays for the Group at the End of the Referral
Health systems have funded the link worker role in social prescribing; community organisations delivering the activity itself have mostly been left to absorb the demand. What published evaluations say about fixing that.
Building the Cost Case for Workplace Connection Without Overselling It
A guide to making a defensible financial case for workplace social connection programmes, including which numbers hold up, which don't, and how to present uncertainty to a budget holder.
What You Lose When You Scale a Connection Programme
Scaling a social connection programme past its founding cohort usually strips out the element that made it work. A practice note on what to measure before you expand, and what to protect deliberately.
What Social Prescribing Reports Leave Out When They Report Attrition
A systematic review found all nine included social prescribing studies reported positive impacts. That uniformity is a warning sign about how attrition gets handled, not evidence the approach works for everyone.
Funding Applications When the Evidence Base Is Thin
A case approach to writing funding applications for social connection programmes when the underlying evidence does not support the outcomes a funder wants claimed.
Running a Group Online or in a Room: A Decision Framework
A structured way to decide whether a connection-focused group should meet digitally or in person, and what changes about facilitation, retention, and evaluation once you've chosen.
The First Four Weeks: Sequencing a New Connection Programme
A week-by-week sequence for launching a group-based connection programme, built around the point where most attrition happens and what to do before, during, and after it.
2023
A Referral Gets Someone There Once. It Does Not Make Them Stay
Social prescribing link workers can refer someone to a group. Whether that group becomes a source of ongoing connection or a single attended session depends on design choices most referral pathways never touch.
Who Is Responsible When Something Goes Wrong in a Walking Group
Social prescribing schemes route people into informal community groups run largely by volunteers. A look at how the sector has handled the safeguarding gap this creates, and what it still hasn't solved.
Recruiting, Training, and Keeping Volunteers for Workplace Connection Programmes
Most workplace peer-support and social-connection schemes run on volunteer labour, not budget. Here is what to build before you recruit, and why most of these programmes die when one person leaves.
The WHO Commission Just Made Loneliness a Global Problem. Social Prescribing Was Built for a Local One
The WHO's new Commission on Social Connection treats loneliness as a worldwide priority. Most of the evidence behind social prescribing comes from older, UK-based, healthcare-connected populations. Here is what has to change before it travels.
The Week Four Problem: Why Attendance Collapses and What to Do About It
Most connection programmes lose attendance at a predictable point, not gradually. A practice note on identifying the collapse point and designing around it.
Funding Reach, Not Just Delivery: A Framework for Recruiting the People Who Won't Sign Up
Most social connection programmes are funded to deliver sessions, not to find the people who never apply. A framework for budgeting, staffing, and measuring recruitment as its own line of work.
When to Stop Running a Social Prescribing Group
A decision framework for programme managers deciding whether a struggling group activity should be fixed, restructured, or closed — and how to close it without harming the people in it.
Choosing a Venue That Doesn't Quietly Kill Attendance
A sequenced checklist for picking the room, the time, and the route that determine whether people referred to a group actually show up twice.
Writing the Case for Support in Commissioner Language
How social prescribing services and connection programmes translate loneliness outcomes into the risk, cost, and service-use language commissioners actually fund — and where that translation runs ahead of the evidence.