What is Loneliness Awareness Week?

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 is Loneliness Awareness Week?

Loneliness Awareness Week 2023 takes place Monday 10th June – Sunday 16th June.

Why is there a Loneliness Awareness Week?

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.

Loneliness Awareness facts you should know

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

• This year’s Loneliness Awareness Week theme is Connection Matters. You can tag your social media posts with the hashtag #ConnectionMatters and #LonelinessAwarenessWeek
• You can look for Loneliness Awareness Week events that are happening in your local area or register your event to the campaign’s website
• 51 million people were reached through the 2022 Loneliness Awareness Week campaign
• 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 celebrate Loneliness Awareness Week in the workplace

There are numerous ways to commemorate Loneliness Awareness Week at work, 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 Mental Health First Aider’s top tips on supporting mental health in organisations

If you’re a member and need more support with celebrating Loneliness Awareness Week, contact your account manager. If you’re not yet a member, get in touch today to see how we can help.