Tracey Crouch announced as Minister for Loneliness with funding promised to tackle issue

The Prime Minister has appointed Minister for Sport and Civil Society Tracey Crouch as ministerial lead on loneliness, with work also beginning on a dedicated fund to help address the issue. Theresa May is hosting a reception at Downing Street today (17 January) to celebrate Jo Cox’s legacy, and the work of her family, Foundation and the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness in highlighting how many people are experiencing loneliness. As part of this, she is to announce that the government is accepting a series of recommendations from the Commission. This includes the appointment of a 'Minister for Loneliness'. Under this role, Crouch will lead a cross-government group that will take responsibility for driving action on loneliness across all parts of government and keeping it on the agenda. The government has also announced that work has begun on a dedicated fund, which will see it work with charitable trusts, foundations, and others to: stimulate innovative solutions to loneliness across all ages, backgrounds and communities provide seed funding for communities to come together to develop activities which enable people to connect scale-up and spread existing work offering practical and emotional support to help lonely individuals reconnect with their communities Minister for Sport and Civil Society Tracey Crouch said: “I am privileged to be taking forward the remarkable work done by Jo Cox, the Foundation and the Commission. I am sure that with the support of volunteers, campaigners, businesses and my fellow MPs from all sides of the House, we can make significant progress in defeating loneliness.”

from UK Fundraising http://ift.tt/2B8L35h