Loneliness Measures Published

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Call for Submissions: Be Proud in your Creativity!

DISABLED PRIDE MONTH JULY 2020

Hello! It’s a really difficult time for the arts at the moment and so we wanted to do something to celebrate the work of creative people and share art more widely. So we thought we would give something new a try! July is Disability Pride Month so we thought this would be a perfect time to try something new on a theme. Here at the Southampton Art in Health Forum we are passionate about the connections between art, creativity, health challenges and living with long term conditions.

During the month of July we would like to showcase the work of creative people who self identify as having a disability (we won’t be asking for any details). For that to work we need artwork - that’s where you come in.

Please send us a message on Facebook or Twitter with your artwork attached, if you would like to share a little about what the artwork (or art in general) means to you or tell us about your disability your welcome to but this is not essential. We will then post up the artworks to our page as they come in, it will be like a virtual gallery.

Some little rules because we want to make sure that we are doing this in an accessible way. * Any medium of art is welcome! * If your artwork is an image you must provide an image description, this is essential so people with visual impairments. * If your submission is video based it must have captions (Youtube can auto generate captions but it’s worth reading through to check for accuracy).

We know for many people the word disability is a tricky term so we just want to stress this is why we won’t be asking any questions and have put the emphasis on self identification. You don't have to feel like an expert artist, it is more about how you express your creativity that counts in a way that is positive and helpful to you.

Loneliness Measures Published

4/22/2018

Loneliness Measures Published
The Office for National Statistics is developing new tools to measure loneliness and has published initial analysis to measure the frequency of people’s feelings of loneliness. In 2016 to 2017, 5% of adults in England reported feeling lonely “often” or “always”. Health conditions and social connections play a significant factor in whether people are likely to be lonely: people in poor health or who have conditions they describe as “limiting” were at particular risk of feeling lonely more often.
People aged 16 to 24 years reported feeling lonely more often than those in older age groups and women reported feeling lonely more often than men. People who feel that they belong less strongly to their neighbourhood reported feeling lonely more often. Three profiles of people at particular risk from loneliness were identified:
·         Widowed older homeowners living alone with long-term health conditions.
·         Unmarried, middle-agers with long-term health conditions.
·         Younger renters with little trust and sense of belonging to their area.
The Prime Minister recently announced the development of a strategy to alleviate loneliness in response to the report of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness published in December 2017. As part of this, she requested that Office for National Statistics (ONS) develops national measures of loneliness. ONS is now working with a cross-government group, charities, academics and other stakeholders to review the measurement of loneliness and publish recommendations on this later this year.
Responding to the report, Councillor Izzi Seccombe, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “The harm loneliness can cause, both physically and mentally, can be devastating to people of all ages - it is a serious public health concern which studies suggest can be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Councils across the country have a range of programmes and initiatives in place to tackle loneliness and work closely with voluntary organisations and faith groups to support vulnerable people in the community. But councils can only do so much. We all need to be on the look-out for each other, which could be as simple as a quick visit to check on a neighbour, who could be a young mum without any family nearby, or an older person living alone. This could make a major difference and help tackle loneliness, which is placing an increasing burden on health and social care.”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/articles/lonelinesswhatcharacteristicsandcircumstancesareassociatedwithfeelinglonely/2018-04-10

Southampton & Hampshire Arts in Health Network

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