fbpx
Back

UK Youth and Co-op Foundation join forces to explore youth loneliness

20 March 2018

  • Latest news
  • News

National youth charity, UK Youth, is working in partnership with the Co-op Foundation to gain vital insight into youth loneliness and explore how the youth sector can be better supported to identify and combat the issue.

UK Youth’s recent survey of 1,000 18-25 year olds found that 85% of young people have moments where they’ve felt lonely, with one in ten feeling like they have no one to discuss their concerns with.

Working with their national network of youth organisations, which reaches an estimated four million young people, UK Youth hopes to capture the experiences and perspectives of youth workers and organisations to better understand:

Patrick Shaw-Brown, Director of National Programmes at UK Youth said: “Young people in our network are increasingly struggling with loneliness and isolation. Despite living in an ever connected world in which our research shows that young people have on average 165 ‘friends’ online, young people are finding it difficult to connect with their community. For many young people, their local youth club could provide them with the safe space to meet new friends and be supported by a trusted adult but more needs to be done to better understand youth loneliness and how local youth services can be better supported to identify and combat these issues.”

Jim Cooke, Head of the Co-op Foundation, said: “Youth loneliness is widespread, but not widely understood. That’s why we launched Belong – our UK-wide network of partners helping young people beat loneliness. We’re excited to partner with UK Youth on this research, which will contribute to understanding youth loneliness from the perspective of those working directly with young people. We hope to use the findings to build on youth workers’ current awareness and capabilities, to help them address this issue effectively and sustainably.”

Over the next few months, UK Youth will be conducting research with youth workers and youth organisations in their membership network. The report will be published later this summer.

 

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Emma Roberts, Head of Marketing and Communications, UK Youth:

Emma.roberts@ukyouth.org | 07455 554 690

 

Share this post
WordPress Website Theme Developer