Our Social Eating programme sought to increase the number of opportunities for older people to come together and eat communally in Greater Manchester. They achieved this by creating a range of social occasions where people feel they belong and can make new friends with whom they can eat regularly. These are very significant factors in reducing social isolation among the over 50s - and increasing evidence base tells us that communal eating increases social bonding, feelings of well-being and enhances people’s connections to their communities.
Talk Listen Change (TLC) are the lead partner in the partnership that includes
- Southway Housing Trust
- Bolton at Home
- Rochdale Boroughwide Housing
- Groundwork Oldham and Rochdale
- Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Circle
- Cracking Good Food
- Food Sync
Following delivery of the programme, we produced three documents about what we learnt, including a guide to delivering your own social eating projects:
- Social Eating Guide - a useful practical guide for groups and organisations wishing to set up social eating activities
- Technical Handbook – additional technical information about setting up social eating activities
- Project Story - evaluation and key learning from the project as we ran it