From their everyday work, general practitioners tend to be familiar with their patients’ psychosocial problems or immediate social challenges. However, they lack both the time to thoroughly address these and the possibilities to refer the patients to a point of contact to tackle these diverse problems. Employing Social Workers in primary care centres is a successful approach to this situation. After all, the resources for this are low or non-existent in large parts of the “healthcare sector” such as hospitals and doctors’ offices.

In the English-speaking area in particular, such referrals to Social Workers are issued by doctors and nurses, but also by other “clinical” professions like physiotherapists and occupational therapists. These professionals are also called “link workers” or “well-being coordinators”. Following a clearing, they serve as navigators to other resources, especially in the non-medical sector. This encompasses the entire field of Social Work including probationary services, drug counseling, debt counseling, basic social security, institutions offering support in the event of unemployment, anti-violence intervention services, assisted housing groups, or emergency overnight accommodation.

A considerably more extensive and elusive part is made up of informal and half-formal resources in the respective immediate social sphere: neighbourhood networks, women’s groups, fire brigades, all kinds of clubs, sports initiatives, senior citizens’ associations, youth groups, and religious and cultural institutions where people can find social connections.

The project researches the international state of social prescribing and develops ideas for implementing it in Austria building on different specific contexts.