BCP Age Friendly Community and the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) Partnership has envisioned what an age-friendly community in Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) could look like. They facilitated feedback sessions with BCP residents, carers, and representatives from local community groups and organisations that provide support for older people to identify their needs. The findings have been published in the BCP Age Friendly Community and the BU PIER Partnership: Starting a conversation report.
Summary of feedback:
What makes a community age-friendly?
Family and a sense of belonging are important alongside the desire to feel safe, and secure, especially for those who have moved to the UK to escape conflict.Older people value friendship, having opportunities to meet new people and being able to speak to someone on a deeper level.
Feedback session with BCP residentsWhat does it mean to age well?
Ageing well means having a clear purpose, remaining active, and keeping busy with volunteering, activities, and day trips. Good transport, garden spaces, local social groups, lunch clubs, good medical care, and an overall feeling of community.
What might an age-friendly community look like?
An age-friendly community is conducive to all people and religions, where people thrive and are accepted, children feel they belong, and people share their interests and skills. Events should bring generations and cultures together, centres where you can meet friends and eat together. In an age-friendly community, there is peace and contentment. Older people feel relaxed, have freedom, and mobility and are treated well and respected and valued for their experience.
Professor Mel Hughes, Academic Lead for the PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership and Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Seldom Heard Voices, said: “It was a privilege to facilitate these conversations with our community partners. Participants who attended our events to discuss what an age-friendly community could be began to connect with others, make new friends and share their expertise.We’re looking at how we can run these events more often.”
Heather Olive, Age-Friendly Communities Coordinator at BCP Council, said: "It was great to collaborate with the BU PIER team, who are part of the BCP Age-Friendly Communities Network, on this project.They helped create an engaging way to have conversations with older people to explore together what it means to age well in BCP and what an age-friendly Community is/could be. We worked closely with the BU PIER team to facilitate events to help us understand what aids a sense of connectedness and supports ageing well within the local community. Attendees made pledges at the end of each event about what action they would take, alongside the report. This has helped to create a shared vision about what an age-friendly community could look like across Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole."
“The events and report have been used alongside other evidence and data from our Insights team to create a State of Ageing report for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. This will help to inform service delivery as well as priorities for the Age Friendly Communities partnership and network. The learnings from the events have also helped us to further develop our partnership work and engagement and use community-led approaches to our engagement work.”
Find out more about becoming an Age Friendly Ambassador in BCP.
