“Les Petits Frères des Pauvres” is a national organization that proposes different ways of fighting against the social isolation of elderly people. In order to develop their services in urban problem areas (the so-called “ZUS”), they asked us to qualify the notion of isolation and analyse the way of life of the elderly in four such areas of Île-de-France. Indeed, the local actors (neighbours, non-profit-making organizations, social and financial backers) that are managing urban problem areas often do not know how to define the phenomenon of social isolation. In contrast with the social workers, most of them are not even aware of the problem.

The main questions of the study were: How can the group suffering from isolation be identified? How can the body of actors involved fight isolation? How can they win the trust of the isolated elderly?

One conclusion of the study was that the main difficulty identifying the isolation suffered by elderly is a consequence of the lack of co-operation between local actors and social workers.