Social prescribing is a way of connecting people to local community services, to help them better manage their health and wellbeing. A social prescribing practitioner – someone who performs social prescribing – can help people to access community groups and services, such as welfare support, exercise clubs, gardening events, creative activities, and befriending groups. However, a lot of confusing language is used in social prescribing, with many different terms used to describe the same thing. This can create barriers to communication and engagement. Read More
To help clarify and standardise the language used in social prescribing, Carolyn Wallace and Simon Newstead from the Wales School for Social Prescribing Research, based at the University of South Wales, partnered with Public Health Wales to develop a glossary of terms for social prescribing. To maximise usability and accessibility of the glossary, it was then developed into a website:
www.splossary.wales
To develop the glossary, the team first conducted a review to find terms related to social prescribing in various types of literature in the UK. To ensure that their research also captured terminology used by the social prescribing workforce in Wales, the team conducted research with social prescribing professionals, who were initially asked to list terms related to social prescribing.
In total, 426 terms associated with social prescribing were identified. These were sub-categorised into 192 ‘core terms’, which are specific or essential to social prescribing, and 234 ‘non-core terms’, which are associated with, but are not specific or essential to social prescribing. The development of the glossary focused on the 192 core terms. During workshops, members of social prescribing workforce in Wales were asked to rate the core terms and sort them into groups, which informed the development of the glossary.
Because many of the core terms described the same few aspects of social prescribing, the team was able to consolidate them into a usable list of 36 terms, to create the original professional-facing glossary. They also created an easy-to-read version of the glossary, which uses more accessible language and contains the 22 terms most likely to be encountered by people accessing or delivering social prescribing.
The splossary website was then created to host both versions of the glossary. Users can easily switch between Welsh and English, and between the different versions of the glossary.
Users can easily navigate the terms in the splossary using: a navigation table of terms; interactive mind maps that show how terms are connected; an interactive pathway flowchart that shows how terms sit within the social prescribing pathway; an A to Z list of terms; and a search function. Each term is accompanied by a description, a list of alternative terms and a list of connected terms. Where relevant, sector-specific preferences for terms have also been identified.
By developing the splossary, the team has made huge strides towards clarifying social prescribing terminology and making social prescribing more accessible to the individuals accessing this important and empowering service.
