By Kate Wright
THE recent Better Life Index 2025 placed Jersey 26th out of 41 countries, scoring 6.4 out of ten – below the OECD average and behind both the UK and France.
For a community that prides itself on success and stability, that’s uncomfortable. But if I’m honest, it doesn’t feel surprising. It reflects something I see and hear increasingly in my work – a disconnect between how Jersey looks on paper and how it actually feels to live here.
I don’t believe this is just about money. It’s about connection.
We often tell ourselves that Jersey is a connected place. And in some ways, it is. The data tells us people feel they have “someone to rely on in times of trouble”. But that’s only part of the story. Having someone you could call in a crisis is not the same as feeling you belong in your everyday life. It doesn’t tell us how easy it is to build relationships here or who gets included – and who doesn’t. I hear it in conversations with people who have lived here for years and still feel like outsiders.
In reality, meaningful connection – the kind that makes you feel safe, valued and happy – is uneven. Some people are deeply embedded in networks of family, friendship and opportunity. Others are not. And when connection depends on who you know, rather than something we actively create, the consequences show up in lower life satisfaction, hidden loneliness and a growing sense that something isn’t working.
What we are starting to understand is that connection doesn’t just happen, but it can be built. We’ve seen glimpses of that through initiatives like Connect Me, where small, community-led interventions have supported hundreds of Islanders. But those moments, important as they are, aren’t enough on their own.
What surveys like the Better Life Index should prompt us to ask is what happens in between, quietly, day to day. If we want a more sustainably successful Island, we need to create the conditions for connection to exist as part of everyday life.
This is where Jersey’s new Wellbeing Hub comes in. The Hub is not a drop-in space or a high-volume co-working environment. It’s something more intentional.
At its simplest, it offers a shared base for people whose work is to support others. It’s a place where a therapist can see clients in a safe, contained environment, a small charity can work alongside others rather than in isolation and a facilitator can run a group without the cost and friction of hiring a venue. It’s also a place where conversations can happen that might not happen anywhere else.
On the surface, these sound like practical things. But they’re not small, because the kind of work that happens in the Hub – therapeutic, community-based, relational – depends on consistency, safety and trust.
Without the right environment, that work becomes harder and, over time, the people doing it carry that strain. The Hub has been designed to ease that. It prioritises continuity – people working from the same place over time, building familiarity and relationships. It removes friction from community work and makes it easier for connection to grow, rather than leaving it to chance.
The Hub was initially commissioned with support from the Jersey Community Relations Trust and the Jersey Community Foundation. It is now run independently and held collectively by the people who use it.
That shift matters as it moves the Hub away from being something delivered, and towards something shared – a place where people are not just users, but contributors shaping the culture and rhythm of the space.
At its heart is the design philosophy of Xanthe Hamilton’s Racc’Moder, an approach rooted in care, repair and a deep understanding of how space affects how we feel. The idea is simple: space should hold people, not overwhelm them. You can feel that when you walk in – the calm and the naturalness of the environment. Nothing is trying too hard and nothing competes for your attention.
Even the materials carry meaning. Parts of the space have been shaped from trees fallen during Storm Ciarán – trees that once stood rooted in the Island, now repurposed into something that continues to support life in a different form.
I think there is something quietly powerful in that – a sense of continuity, of care and of relationship between people and place.
And this is the point. If we want different outcomes – in wellbeing, in belonging, in how people experience this Island, we have to pay attention to the environments we create – not just programmes and services, but the spaces people move through every day.
The Wellbeing Hub is not a solution to everything. It is small, localised and still evolving, but it points to a different way of thinking. One that recognises that connection needs to be designed, not assumed, that belonging doesn’t just appear – it has to be created – and that wellbeing is shaped as much by environment as by individual circumstance.
Jersey does not lack resources. What we are still working out is how to translate those resources into something people can actually feel – safety, inclusion, connection and meaning.
The encouraging thing is that we are not starting from zero. We already have strong communities. People do care, and we are beginning to see what happens when we invest in connection intentionally.
So perhaps the question we should be asking of the Index is this: What could Jersey be like if we took connection as seriously as we take economic success?
What if wellbeing and belonging were not something you had to find your way into, but something built into how our Island works?
Because, in the end, that is what this is about. Not just how Jersey performs, but how it feels to live here. And that is something we really can choose to shape.
Kate Wright is chief executive of the charity FREEDA, chair of the Jersey Community Relations Trust and is a member of the Island of Longevity leadership team.
