By Kendall Worth
I am not big on New
Years Resolutions. But I do like to set achievable goals for myself. In this
BLOG I have decided to frame my primary goal for 2026 as a resolution.
As I explained in my very first BLOG in 2021, my primary purpose as a journalist is to give a voice to people in my community, - by sharing their stories of lives lived in poverty. And to highlight the daily challenges they face as they struggle to survive on government benefits.
Over the past couple of years, a focus of my BLOG has emerged around issues related to social isolation of so many people in my community. Social isolation can be the product of many factors: financial constraints, social awkwardness, physical and mental health issues and more.
Social isolation is a complicated issue. In some cases, it can be the cause of poverty. In other cases it is the result of poverty. But in all cases, breaking out of this isolation can be a huge obstacle for people trying to extract themselves from poverty. In too many cases, this is because of the social stigma that is directed at people living on benefits or living with mental health challenges.
For these reasons, I argue that it is necessary for those in government or social service agencies who are attempting to address poverty issues to view these issues through the lens of social prescription. As I have written in earlier BLOGs, “social prescription (SP) is an approach to health care and well-being that addresses not only physical health and economic well-being, but social factors that impact well-being, such as loneliness and isolation”.
A social prescription approach sees the individual as a complete person and addresses the need for personal growth, creativity and community connection. Social prescribing programs can help to bridge the gap between what is needed and what is available and promote both individual and community health. But one or two social prescription programs or projects are not what I am proposing. Instead, we need to work towards the establishment of a Social Prescription Organization (SPO) with many different programs and projects, - all focused on the human side of health and well-being: reducing loneliness, building peer connections, creating safe spaces to socialize, and helping people to break through the bubble of social isolation.
My advocacy for the establishment of an SPO in HRM has not met with much success to date. So this year I want to take the bull by the horns and address the greatest obstacle I think faces the SPO concept in Nova Scotia.
This is the attitude amongst policy-makers as well as the general public, that an SPO is simply a social club for people living in poverty. When the idea of social prescription is diminished to this level, people can easily argue that social clubs should not be funded with scarce taxpayer dollars.
So, this is my resolution for 2026: To effectively combat the idea that social prescription simply means a social club. In so doing, I hope to reduce the resistance to establishing an SPO in HRM.
In 2024, I attended a national conference on social prescription in Toronto, which I wrote about here. One of the most significant things I learned at that Conference was how in other provinces and cities, social prescription programs and even Social Prescribing Organizations are already up and running. They are seen as important pillars of the support network for people living in poverty, and most especially for those living with disabilities and mental health issues which can greatly worsen people’s social isolation.
What was so striking to me was that everyone could see the benefits and advantages of adopting a social prescription approach. And no one was suggesting that SPOs were simply a taxpayer-funded social club. But that level of understanding is not yet found in Nova Scotia.
This may be in part because in the course of my advocacy for a social prescription approach, I have in the past made the case that a “Sober Bar” could usefully be part of an SPO initiative in Halifax. People quickly jump on the notion of a “bar” to diminish the significance of the rest of the social prescription approach.
As one reader pointed out to me, there is already at least one private, commercial “sober bar” in Halifax, as was featured in an article in The Coast last year. But the purpose and target audience of that bar is high-end spenders out for a fun, if alcohol free, evening.
This is completely different from what I have been proposing in my BLOGs – a safe space in which low income clientele can socialize with one another in an affordable manner and without the potentially dangerous distraction of alcohol. It would be a social hub in which members of our community can gather in a space that is not the usual drop-in centre associated with soup kitchens or food banks. And it could serve as an informal, non-threatening gateway for people in our community to access other support services.
Perhaps I just need to drop the “bar” reference and start calling it a “safe socializing hub” so that this single component of a social prescription approach does not continue to be such an unhelpful distraction.
Of course, there
are many other elements of a social prescription approach that I have discussed
elsewhere. These include services and programs such as:
•
Non
professional, friendship-based peer support service workers, who would be available
outside of office hours;
•
Workshops
on how to meet new people, build and maintain friendships;
•
Promoting
opportunities for community engagement; and
•
Mentorship.
To name just a few possible initiatives to help people break out of their social isolation.
But the bottom line appears to be that the Social Prescription approach will NEVER gain ground in Nova Scotia until we can convince policy makers, front line workers as well as the general public that an SPO does NOT simply mean a taxpayer-funded social club for poor people.
It means an approach to health care and well-being that recognizes that social factors such as loneliness and isolation can have just as big an impact on individuals as their physical health and economic well-being.
Making this case will be the focus of my advocacy efforts in 2026, - through this BLOG and beyond. I hope that others will join me in this effort.
Kendall Worth
is an award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and tries
to make ends meet on income assistance.
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