‘Loneliness: The Role of Social Work’ resource launched to help tackle isolation

Pictured above, from left to right, speakers at Thursday's launch event: (Back row) Mairead Harkin, Workforce Development Officer, Northern Ireland Social Care Council; Kevin Leonard, Principal Social Worker, Western Health and Social Care Trust; Linda Sayers, Independent Social Worker, Sayers Training Services, Catherine Maguire, Co-Director of Regulations and Services, Northern Ireland Social Care Worker; Charlene Hill, School Social Worker, St Ronan’s College; Mandy Cowan, Professional Adviser, Northern Ireland Social Care Council; Natasha Palmer, Refugee Support Service, Barnardo’s Northern Ireland and John Brattin, Social Worker, Liverpool City Council. (Front row) Jennifer McKinney, Lecturer in Systemic Psychotherapy, Queen’s University  Belfast and Lorraine Conlon, Head of Governance and Planning, Department of Health.

Loneliness and social isolation can affect anyone, at any age and stage of their life. It does not discriminate and it can happen to people who to everyone else, seem like they could never be lonely.

As part of National Loneliness Week 2025 the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (the Social Care Council), with the support of the Department of Health (DoH), launched a new resource to help social workers respond to the ever-growing issue of loneliness, isolation and staying connected in our communities.

Loneliness intersects with issues of key importance to social workers including poverty, social justice, exclusion, adult and child protection and domestic abuse. There are over 6,700 social workers registered with the Social Care Council, each social worker has an opportunity to help build meaningful relationships that can help prevent or reduce loneliness.

The new resource provides information and practice examples for social workers to help them understand more about the impact of loneliness and the importance role they have in recognising and responding to loneliness in practice. A loneliness resource was already previously developed for social care practitioners, and this has been updated as part of this work.

'Loneliness: The Role of Social Work' resource was showcased at a special event at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Bellaghy, which saw social workers from across Northern Ireland come together to discuss social work practice and how loneliness manifests in complex life situations and across the life course.

The Social Care Council worked with social workers and people with lived experience of loneliness to identify key information, and best practice examples for the resource.

Catherine Maguire, Co-Director of Regulation and Standards (Interim), Social Care Council said: “I am delighted to introduce this new resource and thank all those social workers and people with lived experience who helped co-produce it. I would also like to thank the Office of Social Services for their continued commitment to raising awareness of loneliness and for funding the development of these resources focussing on the potential contribution of our social care and social work workforces.

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“Social work is a profession focused on relationships. In their role social workers can to get to know someone – to explore with them who and what is important and to try to help them mend relationships, make decisions about harmful relationships or build new ones. Sometimes a social worker is the only meaningful relationship in someone’s life. This new resource aims to help social workers understand the potential of our social work relationships to be part of the solution to ending loneliness.”

Aine Morrison, Chief Social Worker, Department of Health said: “Loneliness can affect anyone, regardless of age or background. You can be surrounded by friends or family and still feel lonely. We need to reduce the stigma attached to loneliness and encourage people to talk about it and social workers are uniquely placed to build relationships and have these important conversations.

“This is an important and timely resource to raise awareness and reduce the negative effects of loneliness and social isolation in our community.”

The free, open access resource can be viewed on the Social Care Council’s Learning Zone.