Living Our Best Life Project

There is strong and growing evidence that loneliness and social isolation significantly impact people’s health and wellbeing. They have been linked to an increased risk of serious and chronic conditions, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and depression. The Australian Psychological Society has described loneliness as “Australia’s next public health epidemic”, reflecting its widespread nature and serious consequences.

These issues not only affect individuals emotionally and socially—they also carry a measurable burden on our health system, increasing demand for medical services and reducing overall quality of life.

How the Living Our Best Life Project Began

In 2019, Equity Trustees funded the Living Our Best Life project that trialed a social prescribing model inspired by Mendip Health Connections and the Bromley by Bow Centre in the United Kingdom. ‘Social prescribing’ is the practice where health professionals provide a referral for a patient to be linked into social services and activities to address the social determinant contributing to poor health, loneliness and isolation.

The CHAOS (Community Houses Association of the Outer- Eastern Suburbs) Neighbourhood House Network then brought the model across to Australia. Launched in 2025, the NIECH Living Our Best Life Project, uses the same model developed by CHAOS to assist individuals in the Inner Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The projects aims to:

Reduce social isolation and loneliness, especially for people not currently engaged or connected
Activate and link into existing social and community activities
Strengthen partnerships between NIECH Neighbourhood Houses and the health sector
Position Neighbourhood Houses as key players in social prescribing and community resilience

The Main Components of the Project

Community Connecting

People enter the program in two main ways: social prescribing from a GP, social worker etc; and self - referral e.g., through signposting, Talking Cafes or marketing material. They participate formally (through the Community Connector) or informally (through Talking Cafes and/or signposting).

The Community Connector is a volunteer or staff member who will work with the person who has been referred to help them find a social activity that interests them and then help them to participate until they are able to do so on their own.

Talking Cafes

These are sessions that take place in a café in the general community at regular times (preferably weekly) and hosted by a volunteer. It’s important that the cafes are set up in a public café that is accessible to anyone in the community, not in a Neighbourhood House.

There are three Talking Cafes located in the NIECH Network across the followings LGA's:

Boroondara (TBC)
Monash (TBC)
Whitehorse (TBC)

You can listen to Talking Cafe participants talk about their experience here.

Sign Posting

This is providing information and potentially some training to people who are in touch with people who may be quite disconnected. This includes library staff, hairdressers, and people providing home care services.

The Living our Best Life Project has proven to be highly impactful, with 90% of participants reporting improved community involvement, and 100% of referring health professionals reporting a valuable increase in optimism and positivity in patients and all saying they would recommend the program to their peers.

For more information, contact projects@niech.org.au.