Liverpool Cares is part of The Cares Family, who run regular group activities bringing older and younger people together to share time, laughter and new experiences through get-togethers like dance parties, film nights, new technology workshops, dinner parties, business visits and more. A Love Your Neighbour programme also matches older neighbours and young professionals to share friendship one-to-one, often in people’s homes. Friends share a chat and a cup of tea, and those who can often visit a local cafe or go to a football match together.

The Cares Family recognise that older people can have deep roots in an area but few connections, living alongside young people who may have many connections but no deep roots. They exist to bring together these two groups to support and socialise with each other.

With research showing that up to 81 per cent of UK adults feel lonely often or always, and that loneliness can have as great an impact on health as obesity or smoking, The Cares Family shows the difference that intergenerational approaches can make.

Nesta is supporting The Cares Family through Accelerating Ideas, a partnership with the National Lottery Community Fund. Independent evaluation of The Cares Family shows that as a result of taking part, 76 per cent of older neighbours feel less isolated and 81 per cent feel less lonely, while 98 per cent of young people said they felt closer to the community. Older and younger people alike feel less lonely and isolated, closer to another generation, that they belong, and an increased connection to self. A common phrase is that older and younger people feel 'part of something bigger than themselves'.

As well as working with over 16,000 older and younger people to date, The Cares Family is having a systemic impact too – helping to shape the government’s loneliness strategy which was launched by former Prime Minister Theresa May at a special joint North London Cares and South London Cares social club in late 2018.

Although The Cares Family is now a national organisation, the group retains its grassroots approach and values: rooted in place, harnessing the mutual language of people in their communities, listening to older and younger people in real time, and connecting the past to the present to the future by bringing together the changing people and places in big cities. In 2018 Alex Smith, Founder and CEO, became one of 20 inaugural Obama Fellows in recognition of his work building communities to reduce loneliness and polarisation.

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hrough our Accelerating Ideas programme in partnership with the National Lottery Community Fund