Social Science Designed Meaningful Friendships Service

BuddyHub的“友谊之轮”服务正在解决老年人中流行的孤独感。我们在一个孤独的老人身边建立了一个代际的、相互支持的4人社会团体，帮助他们重建社交圈。该项目将设计并试点一项平行服务，围绕不同的兴趣组成10-15人的团体或“俱乐部”。这将有助于老年人进一步增加他们与所有年龄段的成员的个人网络，这些成员受益于当地的代际友谊。项目解决的挑战是4人一组需要支持者的重大承诺，较大的团队可能具有更长期的弹性。你拥有的朋友的数量是你心理和身体健康的一个关键预测指标。有朋友来社交和寻求支持，可以预防疾病和认知衰退。另一方面是孤独：260万英国成年人总是或经常感到孤独，150万65岁以上的人长期孤独。如今，65岁以上的长期孤独老人每年花费在NHS上的费用就高达10亿英镑。有证据表明，个人网络的最大规模为150人，以5、15、50、150人为一层。情感亲密度随着每一层的加深而减少。成年人大多和前15个人交往，也就是我们的“同情团体”，另外5个人形成一个相互支持的核心圈子。我们的同情群体随着年龄的增长而衰退，很难建立新的友谊。这项创新是一项个性化的、匹配的、介绍的、持续的支持服务，这样孤独的老年人就可以和有意义的朋友重建他们的“同情团体”。我们的新方法带来了一些有意义的、持久的友谊，因为亲密的朋友会以熟人无法做到的方式提供帮助，而且只有有意义的谈话而不是闲聊才能促进幸福感。相比之下，第三部门的孤独解决方案——传统的交友和针对老年人的群体社交活动——鼓励短期互动，而不会重建“同情群体”。商业解决方案可能会受到价格点、缺乏数字素养、连接或硬件等因素的阻碍。我们的服务支持建立新的友谊，使人们能够在以后的生活中维持和扩大他们的社会联系。我们还谈到了保持身体活动的主题，因为社会关系较少的人不太可能活跃。当我们接受患有早期痴呆症的会员，并为经过审查的会员提供痴呆症培训时，我们也谈到了如何与认知障碍患者生活得更好。我们支持人们建立有意义的友谊，这些友谊往往被传统的老年人服务所排斥。

BuddyHub's 'Friendship Wheel' service is tackling the loneliness epidemic amongst older people. We surround a lonely older person with an intergenerational, supportive social group of 4, to help them rebuild their social circle.This project will design and pilot a parallel service to form groups or 'Clubs' of 10-15 people around diverse interests. This will help older people further increase their personal network with members of all ages benefiting from local intergenerational friendships.The challenge the project solves is groups of 4 require a significant commitment from supporters and larger groups may have more longer-term resilience.The number of friends you have is a key predictor of your mental and physical health. Having friends to socialise with and for support, protects against disease and cognitive decline.The flipside is loneliness: 2.6m UK adults always or often feel lonely and 1.5m chronically lonely people are 65+. The cost to the NHS alone of today's chronically lonely 65+ people is £1bn per year.Evidence suggests a maximum personal network size of 150 people arranged in layers of 5, 15, 50, 150\. Emotional closeness lessens with each layer. Adults mostly socialise with the first 15, our 'sympathy group', with 5 forming a supportive, inner circle. Our sympathy group declines into old age and it is difficult to build new friendships.The innovation is a personalised, matching, introduction, and ongoing support service so lonely older people can rebuild their 'sympathy group' with meaningful friends.Our novel approach leads to several meaningful, enduring friendships as close friends help in ways acquaintances do not and it is meaningful conversations not small talk which boosts well-being.By comparison, third sector loneliness solutions - traditional befriending and group social activities aimed at older people - encourage short-term interactions that do not rebuild the 'sympathy group.Commercial solutions can suffer from barriers due to the price point, and a lack of digital literacy, connectivity or hardware.Our service supports the creation of new friendships enabling people to sustain and broaden their social connections into later life.We also speak to the theme of sustaining physical activity as people with fewer social connections are less likely to be active.We also speak to living well with cognitive impairment as we accept members living with early-stage dementia and provide dementia training to vetted membersWe support people to form meaningful friendships who are often excluded by traditional services for older people.