Author Archives: Jeremy Simmons

It’s Loneliness Awareness Week in the UK, and we’re keen to hear from you: what does loneliness mean to you and your organisation? How have you been tackling loneliness this past year? What challenges do you see in the weeks and months ahead? The background: […]

It was David Lammy MP who first proposed the idea: why don’t we draw up a “charter” to help overcome some of the challenges met by faith groups who want to work with councils? The suggestion came off the back of a series of roundtables […]

With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout well underway—two approved vaccines are currently in circulation, with another to join in the Spring—we feel we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel of this crisis. But, as we are reminded daily by our news […]

Perhaps it is unsurprising that the past 12 months—a time of so much change, uncertainty and tragedy—has seen an increased concern for the mental health of our population. We’ve all experienced alterations to our normal routines, national lockdowns limiting in-person contact with one another, and […]

Within health and care this past year, there has been one pressing issue on most of our minds, as well our news feeds. But amidst all the upheaval and tragedy of the current pandemic, it’s clear that the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the health […]

Imagine the ice-breaker scenario: if you had to leave your house immediately, and could only take one thing with you, what would it be? Emergency situations, whether real or imagined, have a way of bringing things into sharp focus. And the coronavirus pandemic has likewise […]

Election day is now upon us, and voters up and down the country are heading out to their local polling station to cast their ballot… Wherever I have lived over the years, this has—more often than not—meant walking around the corner to a local place […]

It was one year ago… …that the government launched its loneliness strategy for England: A Connected Society: A Strategy for Tackling Loneliness. After committing to take forward a number of recommendations made by the cross-party Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, and having already appointed a […]

A friend of mine began to experience some unusual symptoms. Chest pains. Difficulty sleeping. At one point, he felt like he was having a heart attack. Alongside this came feelings of stress in situations that wouldn’t normally have been stressful, and persistent unreasonable thoughts. There […]