Co-designing social prescribing for the Barossa

Many things affect our health and wellbeing, such as loneliness, poor housing, or financial pressures. These issues cannot be fixed by our health system. Social prescribing connects people to supports and services, such as a community group or financial counselling, to address these ‘non-medical’ issues. This is often done through health settings, involving people called ‘link workers’ to identify people’s needs and refer them to the appropriate service or support.

Social prescribing is widely used in the UK and US but is only in its initial stages in Australia. It is important that we co-design social prescribing to fit Australia’s unique systems and communities. In 2023, Barossa Council partnered with Flinders University to co-design a model of social prescribing for the Barossa region.

This project is Stage 1 of the Barossa Social Prescribing co-design journey, involving co-design workshops with key stakeholders from health, social care, and the community to design a social prescribing model of care.