Loneliness Awareness Week

What is the week about?

Loneliness Awareness Week is an awareness event created by the Marmalade Trust charity, an organisation dedicated to helping people who experience loneliness. Their goal is to not only raise awareness about loneliness, but to help people create supportive communities through conversations and building social connections.

When does this event take place?

Loneliness Awareness Week 2025 takes place Monday 9th June – Sunday 15th June.

Why was the week created?

Loneliness and ill mental health are not the same thing. Everyone will experience some form of loneliness at some point in their lives and it is a common emotion to experience when you feel like your social needs are not being met or are not getting the right levels of social connection.

But it is important to recognise when we are feeling lonely, or when our colleagues might be feeling lonely, so when our social needs are not being met, we can take action to address the problem before it contributes to ill mental health. For example, if a colleague is experiencing workplace loneliness, it is a good idea for them to reach out to someone they trust in the workplace so they can address the issue together.

However, there is still a stigma around loneliness. For example, lonely men are perceived more negatively than women, even though more women than men report feeling lonely (Lau, 1992). So, some people may not feel comfortable taking the first step to reach out to their colleagues or line manager. Therefore, it is important for employers to make their employees aware of the resources available to them, and to create a workplace culture where everyone feels psychologically safe to reach out for help.

When workplaces are psychologically safe, organisations have better employee engagement and well-being, lower employee turnover, more inclusive and diverse cultures and experience many more benefits.

Facts you should know

Here are a few quick Loneliness Awareness Week facts to know:

• Last year’s theme was Random Acts of Connection and this year’s theme is to be announced. You can tag your social media posts with the hashtag #LonelinessAwarenessWeek
• You can look for events related to the week that are happening in your local area
• 45% of adults in England (25 million people) say they feel occasionally, sometimes or often lonely (*Statistics: ONS, UCL Covid-19 Social Study and Campaign To End Loneliness.)
• People aged 16-24 are now the most likely group to be affected by loneliness, while women and people from ethnic minorities were amongst the groups most affected by loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to help create or support communities during the week in the workplace

There are numerous ways to encourage inclusive conversations in the workplace during Loneliness Awareness Week, including:

• Listening to and sharing our Talking Inclusion With podcast about Mental Health with your colleagues
• Hosting Mental Health webinars to train your colleagues about the topic
• Using our bitesize inclusion toolkit to facilitate discussions about loneliness in the workplace
• Inform your team on how they can support vulnerable communities through inclusive customer service
• Downloading our guide on Mental Health in the Workplace – Inclusive Employers members can access it for free
• Read about our top tips for supporting mental health in organisations

Next steps for supporting mental health in the workplace

If your organisation would like support with Mental Health awareness training, reviewing policies to support good mental health or next steps after Loneliness Awareness Week, please complete the form below and a friendly member of our team will contact you.