One question came up again and again during the LONELY-EU online country visit to the Netherlands. How do you get into schools?
Schools are widely seen as one of the most promising places to reach young people before loneliness becomes entrenched. Yet many organisations struggle to gain access. Dutch practitioners shared a practical lesson. Start by showing what an initiative can do for the school. When schools see clear benefits, such as better wellbeing, better attendance, or less dropout, a successful initiative is more likely to become part of the curriculum and to last beyond a single project.
This points to a wider challenge for policymakers. Effective prevention often depends on access to the institutions that already shape young people’s lives, such as schools.
The visit also highlighted a research finding from TU Delft. Loneliness may change how people interpret social situations, so that even positive interactions are more likely to be perceived as negative. Tackling loneliness may therefore also mean understanding how it shapes the way people experience the social world.
The session brought together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, from Movisie and the National Coalition on Loneliness to Radboud University and the Ministry of Health. It also drew on three LONELY-EU ambassadors: Jolanda van Gerwe of the youth organisation Join Us, Jenna Pfeifer of TU Delft, and Thijs Bakker, who works in psychiatric care.
