Fingal County Council Addressing Loneliness with EU Partners

Fingal County Council is taking part in an EU Interreg Project Korale (Towards a Community of Practice and Knowledge On Preventing and Tackling Loneliness from Public Policies) with five European partners in a concerted effort to collaborately improve social cohesion by addressing loneliness and social isolation. KORALE will position Fingal in an excellent place to capture best practice and knowledge across the European partner regions through this project over the next four years.

KORALE has three key objectives which partners will focus on;

Identification and sharing of good practices in preventing or addressing loneliness at individual, family, and community levels, focusing on low-threshold approaches
learning about successful intervention strategies, focus on longer-term approaches including the value of implementing early intervention strategies to proactively reduce the incidence of loneliness later in life
Identification of key factors for transformation: Enabling good practices to achieve higher impact policies and integrate them into other sectors, such as health, education, and housing.

The KORALE project, led by the ADINBERRI Foundation, will officially hold its inaugural suite of workshops and initiatives in Donostia-San Sebastián in June 2024 with active participation from Fingal County Council. This marks the beginning of an ambitious journey through various cities involved in the project, including:

These regions are united in their mission to integrate the prevention and tackling of loneliness into public policies to enable action to be taken in both reducing, addressing and preventing loneliness and social isolation among citizens of all ages.

Insights and best practices from Korale partners will play a crucial role in informing Fingal‘s approach to devising policy and actions around fostering inclusive communities across the county. The project's launch is particularly timely for Fingal County Council, as it is preparing its next Fingal Age Friendly Strategy 2025 to 2029. This strategy is at development stage and will be cognisant of the World Health Organization's (WHO) eight themes, which include Social Participation, Respect and Social Inclusion, Community and Health Supports, and Information.

By learning from these collaborative efforts, Fingal County Council aims to create a more inclusive and supportive community for its residents.

Naomi Weir, Fingal County Council commented, 'We are very pleased to have been selected to work on the Korale programme with our European partners over the next four years. This is a very important project that provides an excellent opportunity to ensure that the Council adopts a proactive strategic approach to addressing loneliness and social isolation in our communities. It also provides a valuable opportunity to ensure we are informed by best practice as we continue to work towards fostering inclusive communities.'

For more information on the project visit www.interregeurope.eu/korale