Getting Started: 

RESOURCES & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

STRATEGIES & PROGRAMS TO ADDRESS 

SOCIAL ISOLATION

Social Calls/Wellness Check-In. When the pandemic 

started, the Northwest Georgia Center for Independent 

Living (NWGA CIL) prioritized contacting consumers and 

providing a safe space to connect. Calls initially took 

place every week and have now shifted to every other 

week, with an increase in calls during holidays. 

The call recipient’s interest shapes the discussion; topics 

can range from coping with holidays to sharing favorite 

recipes. The calls include open discussion about the 

effects social isolation have on people—even those 

who don’t think of themselves as struggling emotionally. 

NWGA CIL hired a specialist who provides mental health 

peer support; the specialist is making connections with 

community-based organizations that provide peer support 

(NAMI, Elevation House), collaborating with these groups 

to reach more people and engage the community.

Screen for Risk of Social Isolation/Loneliness, 

Assess for Assistive Technology (AT), and Train 

and Provide AT. Funded through the 2020 CARES 

Act, Connecticut’s “Stay Connected” is a collaborative 

effort led by the state’s Aging and Disability Resource 

Center (ADRC)/No Wrong Door System. The program 

helps people who need long-term services and supports 

to enroll and obtain the services they choose in the 

place they want to live. Among the collaborators are the 

Connecticut State Unit on Aging, Connecticut’s Tech 

Act Program (the State AT program), five Area Agencies 

on Aging, five CILs, three AT Partners, and Quinnipiac 

University School of Nursing.

The program uses Prof. Nicholas R. Nicholson’s sixquestion Social Isolation Scale to identify older adults 

and people with disabilities who are socially isolated 

or at risk of social isolation. Based on survey results, a 

person is referred for an AT consultation and services 

provided by the Connecticut Tech Act Program and AT 

Partners.

Evidence-Based Health Promotion and Disease 

Prevention Programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 

many evidence-based disease prevention programs have 

initiated virtual sessions and apps to enable people to 

continue benefiting from these programs and services. 

One example is the Maryland Living Well Center of 

Excellence (LWCE), a division of MAC, Incorporated—a 

Maryland Area Agency on Aging on the Eastern Shore. 

LWCE worked with EAGLEForce to develop an app 

that screens for social isolation using LWCE’s and Dr. 

Matthew Smith’s assessment instrument: an upstream 

social isolation risk screener. Based on screening 

scores, LWCE offers the Program to Encourage Active, 

Rewarding Lives for Seniors (PEARLS), an evidencebased intervention to address 

social isolation, loneliness, 

and depression. 

PEARLS loans 

tablets to older 

adults to engage 

in the program if 

they don’t have 

the technology to 

participate.

Visit ACL.gov/CommitToConnect for more on how to stay connected.
TAKE ACTION: DEVELOPING SOCIAL 

ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMS

■ Join the Commit to Connect Nationwide Network of 

Champions.

■ Build and/or leverage partnerships across aging and 

disability programs (AAAs, DD Councils, AT programs, 

CILs, LTC Ombudsmen, nutrition providers, P&A programs, 

SHIPs, SMPs, UCEDDs, etc.) and housing providers.

■ Weave social isolation screening into intake processes for 

any program administered.

■ Consult resources available through the sites, programs, 

and initiatives below.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE & RESOURCES

Commit to Connect Campaign

Commit to Connect is a public-private partnership 

pulled together by the Administration for Community 

Living (ACL) and comprising organizations from across 

federal government, the aging and disability networks, 

philanthropy, and industry. The campaign’s range of 

solutions are designed to address social isolation—

during COVID-19 and beyond—and include:

■ Building a nationwide network of 

champions—that is, a community of practice 

and a nationwide network of national, state, 

and local champions and organizations that 

work together to address social isolation. 

The nationwide network of champions will 

enable real-time sharing of successful efforts 

and help develop a collective awareness 

of evidence-based or evidence-informed 

practices and programs that can be replicated 

across communities.

■ Establishing a scientific advisory group

that assesses the evidence base to support 

program and technology solutions and develop 

a methodology for sharing the evidence on 

those solutions. 

■ Creating a clearinghouse of social 

engagement programs and technologies

that address social isolation.

engAGED: The National Resource Center for 

Engaging Older Adults 

engAGED is a national effort funded by ACL and 

administered by the National Association of Area 

Agencies on Aging to increase the social engagement 

of older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers 

by expanding and enhancing the aging network’s 

capacity to offer social engagement. engAGED identifies 

and disseminates information about emerging trends, 

resources, and replication strategies that the aging 

network can customize for use in their communities.

engAGING Practices: Best Practices for Helping Older 

Adults Stay Socially Engaged features programs that 

offer a range of tactics to address social isolation 

through participation in the arts, lifelong learning, civic 

engagement, technology, and intergenerational activities.

Innovations from the Field currently focuses on COVID-19 

but is being expanded to include other innovations as well. 

Examples from the field are organized by:

• Telephone Reassurance and Wellness 

Checks

• Remote Connectedness

• Virtual Wellness Programming

• Engaging Older Adults at Home

• Transportation and Social Isolation

• Caregiver Social Isolation

• Dementia and Social Isolation

The engAGED Community Toolkit includes an explainer 

on the UCLA Three-Item Loneliness Scale, a revised 

version of the original 20-question instrument.

Visit ACL.gov/CommitToConnect for more on how to stay connected.
ADvancingStates

Addressing Social Isolation for Older Adults During 

the COVID-19 Crisis was created through one-to-one 

conversations with states and a call for ideas in the 

Friday Update, a weekly email reaching more than 

15,000 aging and disability professionals. Updated 

regularly, this resource assists states and others with 

creative and thoughtful approaches to address social 

isolation and loneliness in older adults, and to facilitate 

sharing and learning across states.

Meals on Wheels America (MOWA)

Combating Senior Isolation and Loneliness is an 

overview of three programs offered through MOWA’s 

nutrition and meal delivery service. The programs 

include Telephone Reassurance, Friendly Visitors (Senior 

Companions), and Pet Assistance and Food Delivery.

AT3

This Assistive Technology Toolkit provides the aging and 

disability networks and others who serve older adults and 

people with disabilities with a range of tools to improve 

awareness about AT. The toolkit can help agencies and 

their partners start a conversation about using existing 

AT resources in their states and communities, while 

also guiding them to consider diverse agency structures 

and capacities in order to see what steps can be taken 

to more fully provide awareness and resources about 

AT devices and services to older adults, people with 

disabilities, caregivers, and others.

LeadingAge CAST

The Social Connectedness and Engagement Tool is a 

comprehensive portfolio of hands-on resources that help 

providers understand, plan for, select, implement, and 

adopt the appropriate technology while advocating for 

innovative care models.

BridgingApps

BridgingApps provides caregivers and professionals 

with resources for choosing apps to enhance everyday 

life for people with disabilities, and sharing their 

successes with others. A search on social isolation 

provides stories of people’s experience with apps to 

address social isolation.

Connect2Affect 

This social isolation assessment is a tool to screen for 

a person’s risk of social isolation. The site also includes 

a searchable database of activities by ZIP codes.

FURTHER READING ON ASSESSMENTS & 

SCREENERS

■ Measuring Your Impact on Loneliness 

in Later Life is a publication of the 

U.K.’s Campaign to End Loneliness offers 

organizations guidance on choosing and 

using a scale to measure the impact of their 

services on loneliness in older adults.

■ Social Isolation and Loneliness Among Older 

Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care 

System (NASEM Consensus Study Report)

■ Combatting Social Isolation Among Older 

Adults in a Time of Physical Distancing: 

The COVID 19 Social Connectivity Paradox

(Frontiers in Public Health)

Visit ACL.gov/CommitToConnect for more on how to stay connected.