A national mental health charity runs a number of local wellbeing centres offering a variety of resources, services and support at a local level. You have been contacted by your local wellbeing centre and asked for help. One of the services they run is for older people, which includes low-cost counselling and a number of social and activity groups that service users can choose between. The centre has seen growing demand for its services in recent months.

The majority of clients accessing the older person services are over 65 years old. Some have mild mental health problems, and nearly all experience chronic loneliness. Volunteers at the charity include current and previous service users (who run social groups and activities, and co-design them with paid staff), and trainees on counselling and psychotherapy placement work. These two groups are supervised and managed by paid charity workers, who also supply the administration, funding and operational management needed to keep the wellbeing centre running.

The manager of the charity runs a programme of development events for staff and volunteers, and has contacted you to ask you to contribute to an event. This event will focus on increasing understanding of the wellbeing and mental health needs of the older client population and, in particular, increasing understanding and knowledge of loneliness for that group.

The manager asked you to focus on four areas:

What is loneliness, and in particular what forms might it take for older individuals? How can the causes and impacts of loneliness best be addressed for older age groups, including in counselling? What kinds of other wellbeing or mental health issues for this age group should the team be aware of in its service provision? Your recommendations to support the team delivering the service, and for the service focused on this older age group (a maximum of three recommendations in total).