Celebrating Social Prescribing Day 2025 with new SP Champions

Social Prescribing Day is an annual celebration of the people, organisations and communities who make social prescribing happen. Since 2019, thousands of local, national and international organisations, link workers, medical professionals, academics and students have taken part across the world. We’re really pleased to join in the celebration, particularly celebrating the fantastic Link Workers on our team who work extremely hard to support their clients across Richmond.

The National Academy of Social Prescribing has recently appointed two new Champions, Katy Stocks and Jim Brady to be ambassadors for the role. As their colleague, Nora Kerezovic is a firm believer in giving credit where it is due, she went to congratulate Katy and Jim, and explored what makes them so good at what they do.

Congratulations to you both on becoming National Social Prescribing Champions, an amazing accolade to have achieved after one year in the role. How do you feel?

Katy: I am grateful that I have been given a platform to continue sharing the importance of social prescribing and how it can support people and help them gain knowledge from others.

Jim: It makes me feel proud of how far I’ve come, and for what I was able to help clients achieve. I feel social prescribing is the role I was born to do. As cliché as that sounds.

Social Prescribing has a national day to honour it – what do you think is the reason for this?

Katy: Social prescribing is still relatively new as a service. When I speak to new clients, 99% of them have never heard of it! Having a day of appreciation allows for a dedicated time and space for everyone to share and listen to how social prescribing has supported clients and its future plans! It’s estimated that 1 in 5 GP appointments are non-medical, so social prescribing is ideally placed to help support those people best.

Jim: We do good work, and we empower others to do good work too through volunteering and community support. Why would there not be a Social Prescribing Day!

Is the job how you imagined it would be? Or were there any surprises?

Katy: Overall, it was how I expected it to be. I was expecting to be able to support clients with their non-medical needs. A pleasant surprise was how much some clients were grateful for the support and the extent to which it helped them with their confidence in other areas of their lives, not just the ones we looked at. We also interact more with other local services than I thought we would have, which is incredibly empowering as it brings together groups of professionals with the same goals.

Jim: Many, many surprises! When I first started the referrals I was working with looked very much like what I was expecting, a bit of weight management here, a bit of social isolation there, but as time went on, and outside factors like the cost of living increased, I found that I was helping people with applying for benefits and grants, linking people to homeless support charities. It’s safe to say that was not at all what I was expecting, but getting good outcomes for those clients has always felt rewarding.

In your profession, there’s legal and mandatory training – is there something you learned ‘on the job’ that didn’t come from a textbook?

Katy: Learning to support a client in an individualised way, even if they have the same health condition or disability as another. I have learnt to recognise that each client has their own lived experience of their conditions, and it is essential to support them with this in mind.

Jim: I learned when to let go – not in the morbid sense! I had to teach myself in the first few months to close cases even if the outcome wasn’t spectacular, because the client got either what they wanted and didn’t tell me, or because they got something and knew they wanted more, but couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me what that was. As Social Prescribers our job is to empower our clients to make changes to their lives, to improve their wellbeing, not to fix all their problems by ourselves. That was a difficult lesson to learn.

What is YOUR proudest element of your year as a Social Prescriber to date?

Katy: What makes me proud is my contribution to something I genuinely believe in. Social prescribing can significantly enhance people’s confidence and provide them with a sense of control over their health and well-being. Being a part of this journey for someone is incredibly special and uplifting.

Jim: I always feel a sense of pride when my clients take steps I recommended and see wellbeing improvements.

How are you going to celebrate Social Prescribing Day? 

Katy: I will be celebrating with colleagues and other social prescribers, where we can all feel a sense of pride in what we do.

Jim: On Social Prescribing Day I’m volunteering with some other members of the Ruils Wellbeing Team at a CSPAN Networking event at Roehampton University. I’ll be celebrating the day by volunteering and telling anyone who asks/will listen about Social Prescribing.

Interested in learning more about Social Prescribing and our other Health and Wellbeing Services? Click here.