A single arm trial of social prescribing with families and young people on loneliness and community integration in 10 sites across Queensland

Link worker social prescribing (e.g. Dingle et al., 2022), which involves referring a family, child or young person (FCYP) with identified social needs from self, education, health or community sector professionals to a link worker based in a community center who will screen the family or young person's loneliness, social interests, and barriers to community integration. They will work together to find a suitable community social activity to match the FCYP's interests. Four common types of activities are physical activity (e.g. family joins the weekly 5km parkrun at their local park), arts and culture (e.g. child and parent attend weekly music sessions at their community centre), nature based (e.g. families sign up for monthly fishing outings with borrowed equipment and an instructor on hand), and educational / skills training groups (e.g. English conversation classes for CALD parents and children). The link worker may also refer clients on to health or social services to meet needs beyond the scope of social prescribing. Contact with the link worker may occur face to face in the community centre or by phone or internet, as suitable. There is no restriction to the number of contacts or time spent with the link worker, and the duration of the active intervention is 12-weeks,