The Cares Family: Annual Report 2022

In today’s world, too many of us are experiencing isolation and division. Our communities are in a crisis of social disconnection.

• 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 experience chronic loneliness
• 2 in 5 16 to 24-year-olds report feeling lonely often or very often, making them among the loneliest age groups in our society
• Only 45% of younger people feel as though they belong within their neighbourhood
• Most people have 40-50% fewer social interactions with people of different ethnicities than they would if their social networks reflected the areas they live in

We believe this crisis can be overcome.

The Cares Family’s vision is of socially connected communities in which people feel less lonely, more united and that they belong.

In 2022, we published our updated strategy to achieve this, shaped by a belief in the transformative power of human relationships and an awareness that systems-level challenges require systems-level responses.

Through our local charities and local programmes, we are going deeper by bringing more older and younger people together, sustaining meaningful relationships between them and supporting neighbours to feel visible, connected and that they have a stake in their communities.

Through our national projects, we are spurring a ripple of connection across the UK by sharing our learning with others, influencing policy and decision-making, and shifting narratives, attitudes and behaviours.

Our five local charities – based in London, Manchester and Liverpool – bring older and younger neighbours together to share time, laughter, new experiences and solidarity within their local communities.

• 4,548 older and younger neighbours were part of our local programmes in 2022
• 2,056 older and younger neighbours attended 865 social clubs in 2022
• 482 pairs of older and younger neighbours enjoyed one-to-one friendship on our Love Your Neighbour programme in 2022
• 3,077 older and younger neighbours joined our local networks through our Outreach programme in 2022

12 community change-makers took part in the second year of The Multiplier in 2022, our leadership programme for individuals wishing to develop and grow bridge-building initiatives in their own communities in their own ways. By the end of the programme, all 12 Multipliers felt confident in their organisation’s future and were thinking about how to make systemic change.

In 2022, we also launched Ripple Effect our new national programme, through which we actively support organisations, groups and individuals to adopt and adapt our intergenerational model in their communities by sharing stories and learning from our local programmes

We campaign for action to nurture relationships within communities and to drive the need to build connection up the political and policy agenda. We published a joint report with Power to Change, Building our social infrastructure: Why levelling up means creating a more socially connected Britain, which demonstrates the importance of local connecting institutions. Our ‘Building Belonging’ podcast, which highlights the work of community organisations across the UK, launched in May 2022 and has had over 10,000 engagements.

Through media training and storytelling opportunities, we supported 13 neighbours from our local charities to share their own stories of discovering connection and community in local and national media. They also supported the production of five new films featuring the work of each of our local charities, which were released in November 2022 and have been viewed over 70,000 times.

Finally, we are grateful to the hundreds of wonderful individuals and businesses in London, Liverpool and Manchester who donate their time, products, skills, money and love to help The Cares Family deliver our programmes. All those supporters are part of the community, and benefit in return from the connections they facilitate.