Health

Did we need a Minister for Loneliness?

Posted by

3

I was delighted to hear the news that Tracey Crouch has been appointed as Minister for Loneliness.

We know that loneliness kills – it’s potentially more harmful than smoking or obesity.

I meet hundreds of people each year who would describe themselves as lonely. As one woman told me on a visit to a local community partner in Sheffield: “I was so depressed sitting at home with no-one except daytime TV. I just had to get out of the house.”

It’s great to know that the lonely people I’m meeting are now getting the essential social interaction that they need – through the Online Centres Network.

Volunteers and workers in our communities deal with lonely people every day. Good Things Foundation works with community venues across the UK – the Online Centres Network – and people come to get support to use the internet either for the first time or to get to grips with the basics, and so many of them say it is also important that it’s a chance to get out of the house and meet other people.

Bob Dunkerley, one of our 2 Millionth Learners from last year’s award ceremony, said: “Going along to Starting Point (his local Online Centre), for me, it’s a bit of a community that provides a necessary service for people who are on their own, especially older people. I need something in my life to give me an incentive to do things. The laptop training and companionship at Starting Point can do that.“

It isn’t just our digital skills learners that overcome loneliness by going along to centres. We’re a social change charity as much as we are a digital inclusion one, and projects like English My Way are vital in helping to tackle the loneliness issue. A video we released last year really demonstrates the camaraderie amongst one group of women at Online Centre Neighbours in Poplar:

Models that both empower people in a digital world and which provide face-to-face, community-based support are a powerful way to overcome loneliness.

Centres within the Online Centres Network provide an informal approach to help people overcome the issues they’re facing. That’s what an informal approach is all about, it’s focused on the person – what they need to do, and in the way and the pace that suits them.

Congratulations to you Tracey on taking up this vital role. It’s great to see the government making a commitment to such a pressing issue and I welcome the cross-sector and co-ordinated approach that will be taken.

I hope the community sector will play a significant role in cross-Government work around loneliness.

Tracey, you’re very welcome to come and visit an Online Centre and see this important work for yourself. Meeting the people who are taking such transformative journeys into the digital society and into happiness.

Alive and Kicking

Posted by

1

It’s a new year; a time when fresh and fun ideas begin to take shape, and what better way to get things started than by joining the masses and going on a health kick? Exercise, smoothies, healthy eating, I’m doing it all and here at Tinder Foundation we’re beating the new year blues with a new Wellbeing Programme.

Why are we doing it?

The only thing better than a happy team is a team that’s both happy and healthy, and we’re making sure that all my colleagues are well-looked after both in body and in mind.

We’re doing so many things. Here are just a few:

  • We’re providing ample fruit every working day until the end of February, both to eat fresh or to conjure up a smoothie. How do you like those apples?
Screen Shot 2016-01-06 at 15.50.52

Smoothie time

  • I’m sure you’ve heard of Mindfulness, a subject which is being talked about more and more recently. It’s all about focussing your mind and making sure your attention remains where it’s supposed to be when it begins to wander. We’ve been lucky enough to set up some sessions on this with a professional, Kevin Tobin. And, by happenstance my son bought me a colouring book for Christmas, which is now all the rage for busy adults.
  • Kevin will also be teaching us about Stress Management and Resilience to help the team remain calm, relaxed and ready for any challenge that’s thrown our way.
  • On top of this we’ll be having Tai Chi lessons and we’ll be continuing our lunchtime run club (you may have seen this on Twitter at the end of last year) with the addition of a lunchtime walking club around Sheffield City Centre too. Pretty soon we’ll be a group of Tai Chi-practising runners who know the sights of Sheffield like the back of our hand.

Screen Shot 2016-01-06 at 15.47.09

There’s a lot going on here at Tinder Foundation. I’m sure the team will agree that it’s a really great place to work and it’s even better with the addition of this new programme. It’s the ideal way to start 2016 and to make sure that the whole team feel motivated, inspired and positive about the year ahead.

I spent the Christmas period with a self-imposed ban on work emails, and having a relaxed and clear mind I then allowed myself some time to think about the next few years and how we can be as impactful as possible up to 2020. More on that in another blog!

Happy New Year.

Closing the health gap using digital inclusion and data

Posted by

0

Today in the Guardian Online, I’ve got an article arguing that the preventative care revolution depends on closing the digital divide.

Across the UK, 11 million people have poor digital skills and half those who are offline have a disability. Digital inclusion is now a matter of life and death.

Read the article in full over on The Guardian Online

Obamacare: Cash poor, health poor, digital poor. Can we help? Yes we can

Posted by

1

A few bugs in the Obamacare website is not the real story here. It’s the fact that, according to Pew Internet, 48 million Americans don’t use the internet at all and millions more can’t do online transactions. Tinder Foundation is a UK non-profit with a proven solution to help millions to get online and use Government services. A year ago I would have said that our success wasn’t relevant to this story unfolding over the pond but now I know that it is – the stats tells the story. In the US and the UK the people who are offline are basically the same demographic and have the same barriers: 50/50 of offliners are over/under 65 years of age; around 40% live in households on very low incomes; and about 50% have a low educational attainment (no high school diploma in the US and don’t have 5 GCSEs in the UK). Lack of perceived relevance and not having the skills to use the internet are the two main barriers. If the problems are the same then the solution could be too.

The correlation between those who are the ‘digital poor’ – who don’t and can’t use the web – and poor health is huge. Just looking at life expectancy is a clear indicator: in London the average age at death ranges from 71 in Tottenham Green to 88 in Queen’s Gate and in Washington DC life expectancy for the poor is 71 years and for the education professional it’s 83 years.

The cost of healthcare is not something we have to worry about in the UK, we’re lucky to have the NHS so much so we often take it for granted. If you fall ill in the US it’s down to you to foot the bill – unless you have health care insurance. It is estimated that between 32-50 million Americans don’t have any cover and with the average visit to the emergency room costing £780/$1,265 it can be expensive. Unsurprisingly the number one reason for bankruptcy in the US is health care costs. So Obamacare is there to help people who are cash poor, and who will in all likelihood suffer health inequality, and will also suffer digital exclusion.

Tinder Foundation is lucky to be working with NHS England to tackle the ‘digital poor’ so that they can benefit in the drive for better health information, health prevention, and more conversations about health – all to be online. Our work with our 5000 hyperlocal partners in the UK online centres network will increase the web literacy for those digital poor so that both have the skills to use it and know that it can improve their and their families’ health. Tie that together with essential tools such as the free Learn My Way online courses helps people to learn as well as local partners to track that learning using the data analytics. I think this is a model that could help Americans to not just register for Obamacare but also to access online information to keep them healthy too.

We’ve helped over 1 million people at a unit cost of £30/$50, and I know our model could work for much higher numbers of people where there is a collective will to make it happen. This kind of effort, at the kind of scale that’s needed, takes time, fantastic partnership building on the ground, and persuasive and focused leadership.

It’s easy to see that the introduction of Obamacare should benefit millions of people. Stop talking about the bugs. Bugs in a website are a temporary problem and I’m sure there are hundreds of programmers busily fixing it right now. It’s the 48 million Americans who don’t use the web that is a more difficult problem to fix.