Social Prescribing & Community-Connected Care

Connecting healthcare, social needs and community resources through care navigation and responsible implementation.

Social Prescribing Vietnam (SPVN) works at the interface between healthcare and community support. Our focus is on how social prescribing and community-connected approaches can be understood, adapted, implemented and evaluated responsibly in Viet Nam.

Our work is organized around five connected pillars.

Our Five Pillars

1. Social Prescribing
Connecting people with appropriate non-clinical and community-based support through a person-centred process focused on what matters to them.

2. Community-Connected Care
Strengthening practical connections between healthcare and community resources so that health services do not operate in isolation from the social and everyday circumstances affecting people's lives.

3. Care Navigation
Helping people understand available options, find appropriate support, overcome practical barriers where possible, and move more effectively between healthcare, social and community resources.

4. Social Needs & Health
Recognizing that factors such as social connection, housing, financial pressures, transportation, caregiving, meaningful activity and access to services can influence health, well-being and the ability to engage with care.

5. Implementation & Evaluation
Turning promising ideas into workable, safe and sustainable practice through clear roles, appropriate governance, referral pathways, community partnerships, workforce capability, equity, follow-up, measurement and continuous learning.

These pillars can support different areas of care, including healthy ageing, long-term conditions, social connection and transitions between healthcare and community settings.

How We Work

Across these five pillars, Social Prescribing Vietnam supports evidence and knowledge exchange, education and capability building, community resource mapping, readiness and pathway design, co-design and pilot development, implementation learning, research and evaluation, and international collaboration.

We work with healthcare organizations, universities and researchers, social work and social care stakeholders, community and civil society organizations, public-sector partners and international networks.

International experience is used as a source of learning, not as a model to be transferred to Viet Nam without adaptation.

From Exploration to Responsible Implementation

Not every organization or community needs the same model. We support a staged approach that begins with understanding the local context, available resources, needs and implementation readiness before moving toward carefully governed pilots and evaluation.

The aim is to learn what works, for whom, under what conditions, and what needs to change before wider implementation.

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Designed for the Vietnamese Context

Viet Nam already has healthcare services, medical social work, community organizations, public and social services, family networks and many locally rooted forms of community support.

Our role is not to replace these existing systems or create unnecessary parallel structures. We aim to help strengthen appropriate connections between them, identify gaps and barriers, build implementation capability and generate locally relevant learning.

Social prescribing and community-connected care should complement appropriate healthcare, professional social work, social care and other established services.

Partner With Us

Work With Us

We welcome collaboration on education, evidence exchange, community resource mapping, implementation readiness, pathway and pilot development, research, evaluation and international learning.

Whether you are exploring social prescribing for the first time or developing a practical implementation project, we welcome conversations grounded in local needs, responsible implementation and shared learning.