Celebrating Social Prescribing Day- 14th March 2024

This year the National Academy of Social Prescribing is encouraging everyone to get involved with Social Prescribing Day on 14th March. 

Almost a year ago, we gathered hundreds of church leaders along with experts in mental health for our ChurchWorks for Wellbeing Conference. The purpose of which was to equip the church to respond to the mental health needs of our communities. We were delighted to have Clarie Miles from Kintsugi Hope, Dianne O’Leary from Jubilee Community Church and Faith Leask from Southampton Central PCN to share how churches can engage in social prescribing. If you missed the conference, you can access the talks for £5 here. 

Social Prescribing has been formally part of primary care provision by the NHS for the last five years. However the concept of referring individuals to community services has been in practice for much longer with individual medical centres and VSCE networks facilitating connections into non-medical wellbeing support for decades. The social prescribing landscape remains variable across regions with NHS, VCSE and Local Authorities playing different roles to provide social prescribing referrals. It is likely that change will continue as more focus is put on the value of collaborative intersectional working and whole-person healthcare. 

However, there is significant value to churches building connections with local social prescribing link workers both in terms of meeting the needs of vulnerable people in our communities right now, and building relationships for future health needs as they evolve. You can read more about what churches that are doing in our article in the ChurchTimes from October 2023. 

There are a couple of ways you can get involved in social prescribing on 14th March: 

1. Events. Get involved in a celebration event near you or you could host your own. An online discussion, tea party or creative workshop are all options and are excellent opportunities to share what you’ve done as part of social prescribing, to meet people in your community or to connect with social prescribing link workers and other service providers. 
2. Get Social. Share your stories or examples of social prescribing on social media using #SocialPrescribingDay. You can access resources to help with this here. 
3. Get in touch. If you have built relationships with your local social prescribing link workers and you have some stories to share, please get in touch with us. We would love to hear what you’re doing and what is working well. Email info@churchworks.org.uk

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