Social prescribing & public libraries: a natural fit
Public libraries play a crucial role in supporting community health and wellbeing through various programs, services, and resources. In Victoria, our public libraries have over two million members and receive 30 million visits annually. They provide safe spaces, support digital literacy, offer health and wellbeing services such as meditation and yoga, enlist specialist health professionals to deliver free information sessions, and provide credible health information through their collections and community noticeboards.
Loneliness and social isolation can pose a bigger risk for premature death than smoking, particularly affecting people over 75 and those aged 15–25. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased rates of loneliness and social isolation, particularly in Victoria where we experienced the longest lockdowns and restrictions on movement than anywhere else in the world.
As noted in Libraries for Health and Wellbeing: a strategic framework for Victorian public libraries towards 2024, there is a need to invest in disease prevention and health promotion to break the cycle of increasing demand for healthcare services. Place-based services and solutions are important in providing integrated, local health and wellbeing support. Enter libraries and social prescribing.
What is social prescribing?
Social prescribing is the act of referring patients to non-medical resources as a form of treatment. It takes a whole-person approach and considers a wider range of factors such as their social and economic status, family situation and living conditions over the symptoms of an illness alone. It has been identified as a key component of holistic health management and is increasingly being recognised throughout the UK and Australia. In 2020, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Consumers Health Forum of Australia released a report from the November 2019 Social Prescribing Roundtable, supporting the need to incorporate social prescribing into the Australian healthcare system.
A report by Nerida Dye, recipient of the 2021 Barrett Reid Scholarship, revealed that GPs and other health professionals have been ‘social prescribing’ long before the term existed in our vocabulary. Public libraries are well-positioned to play an active role in social prescribing and can formalise their role and relationship with community health services by aligning their vocabulary and realising the synergies that exist between them.
The Social Prescribing Library, created by Campaspe Library Service in collaboration with the State Library of Victoria and Public Libraries Victoria, is a project aimed at developing a toolkit that supports public libraries to develop a sustainable social prescribing service. It offers a framework to help libraries align themselves to identified community health needs/priorities and either add value to an existing social prescription program or support them to develop their own.
A key role needed to facilitate social prescribing is a link worker (also known as community connector, health and wellbeing coordinator or outreach officer). This role often exists within community health organisations but it is increasingly common to see libraries employing social workers, community wellbeing officers and dedicated outreach officers that take on some of the functions of a link worker. In some ways, the role of a librarian has always been that of a link worker; they are trusted professionals directing people to information and services and providing assistance that positively contributes to someone’s social and emotional wellbeing, but there are distinct differences to be made between the function of a link worker and librarian.
How libraries can expand upon a social prescribing program
The toolkit outlines three levels of social prescribing implementation: signposting, programs, and assertive outreach.
The success of signposting can be measured by the quality of information and resources provided and the strength of partnerships with GPs and allied health professionals. Active advocacy and networking are necessary to inform them about library programs, services and partnership opportunities.
Articulating the health and wellbeing benefits of participating in library programs is key to a successful social prescribing program. We’ve seen improvements in how library programs are described and reported upon with Public Libraries Victoria introducing a category within their annual benchmarking and performance survey of public libraries that counts the number of health and wellbeing programs delivered. Some libraries, like Yarra Libraries, include health and wellbeing program targets in their program frameworks and participate in national benchmarking programs to measure and compare the social impacts of their programs.
Assertive outreach improves community awareness of the programs and services already on offer at their local library, and helps build effective partnerships and relationships with community health providers.
Library funding is essential
Additional funding for professional training would enable public libraries to be more active and effective partners in a social prescribing program. Training around the language of social prescribing (talking about library programs and services as drivers for positive health and wellbeing), ethics and boundary-setting are essential for ensuring success (librarians are not health professionals; they are information professionals).
In addition, extra funding for the delivery of social connection programs and the acquisition of health information resources would benefit the millions of visitors to Victoria’s public libraries, returning nearly double the investment in equivalent savings to the healthcare system (as revealed in a recent study from State Library Victoria and Public Libraries Victoria on the health and wellbeing benefits of public libraries).
Further reading & listening
I was lucky enough to hear Nerida speak at the 2024 ALIA National Conference in Adelaide, and hear about her experience operating a social prescribing program in her library. I cried listening to her stories, particularly one about Betty, an older woman with dementia who had become withdrawn and mute. Her carer brought her to the library each week to participate in a digital literacy program, however they commented to library staff ‘not to bother’ setting up an iPad for Betty because she wouldn’t use it. Nerida persisted and placed an Apple Pencil in her hand, assisting her to see how it interacted on the iPad like a traditional pencil. This moved Betty to speak, and she continued to draw, to the surprise of her carer who hadn’t seen her so animated. (Nerida tells this story much better than I could — listen to her talk about the program and share similar stories on the Campaspe Library Service Social Prescribing Project Podcast).
- A collective force for health and wellbeing: Libraries, health and social care, Scottish Library & Information Council, The Alliance, National Health Service Scotland (2019)
- Beyond the book: Public Libraries as Social Prescription Hubs: A case study of a London Public Library. Diss. C, (2020), https://hcommons.org/deposits/view/hc:29546/CONTENT/falilat-olu-alabi-2020-.pdf/
- Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States, Holt-Lunstad, J., Robles, T.F., Sbarra, D.A. (2017), https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Famp0000103.
- Public libraries as partners for health, Preventing chronic disease, 15, (2018), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5985906/
- Health 2040: Advancing health, access and care, State of Victoria, Department of Health and Human Services (2016).
- Loneliness: A new public health challenge emerges, VicHealth (2018), https:// www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/letter/articles/vh-letter-47-loneliness.
- Public libraries as partners for population health, Morgan A.U., Dupuis R., D’Alonza B., Johnson A., Graves A., Brooks K.L., McClintock A., Klusaritz H., Bogner H., Long J.A., Grande D., Cannascio C.C. (2016)
