Speakers
When the UK Prime Minister launched the world’s first ever government-level loneliness strategy in 2018, she said it was ‘only the beginning of delivering a long and far reaching social change.’ That day, campaigners who had pushed the government to take action were thrilled – and excited about the prospect of helping to make its promise real. And yet, just a few short years later, the UK’s leadership on loneliness had stalled: by 2025, several key organizations driving impact had shuttered; national philanthropies that had sought to tackle loneliness for a decade had shifted their priorities; and a movement that had been in the ascendency fragmented as the world moved on to apparently more urgent issues.
This webinar on June 2 at 9:00 AM ET / 2:00 PM BST, will bring together key leaders in the UK’s efforts to reduce loneliness with Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center leaders, to share learning from the international experience of working on loneliness, which has been labelled ‘one of the great challenges of our time.’ It will look at multifactorial questions including the importance of working within historical and policy contexts, the role of philanthropy and academia, the importance of community action and storytelling, political leadership, and cross-sector collaboration. That learning from Alex Smith’s recent HKS Shorenstein Center report will provide a framework for a wide-ranging conversation about what’s possible in social change more broadly in times of challenge and change. This webinar is co-hosted with The Jo Cox Foundation.
Speakers include:
- Liz Schwartz, HKS Shorenstein Center (Moderator)
- Tracey Crouch, Former UK Minister for Loneliness
- Alex Smith, HKS Shorenstein Fellow
- Olivia Field, CEO, Jo Cox Foundation
- Trey Leveque, Social Connection Fellow & Former Chief of Staff, Vivek Murthy