Facilitating intergenerational understanding and activities
Summary
One of the elements of the Age Friendly Island Programme focuses on encouraging intergenerational understanding and activity to reduce social isolation. A member of staff is dedicated to ensuring that younger and older communities have a greater understanding of each other and how they can learn from, and support each other.
They facilitate this by hosting assemblies/talks in schools and colleges and by providing bespoke lesson plans to be delivered over several weeks. To date the team has engaged with 67% of the schools on the Isle of Wight and around 6,000 individual children between 5 and 18.
One of the tools used to change young people’s perceptions of ageing and older people is Age Friendly Training. This uses a special age stimulation suit and glasses etc. so that younger people can obtain a real insight into how ageing can affect you physically.
Following on from assemblies the team also recruits, trains and supports young volunteers (usually 16-18-year olds), to give emotional and physical support to older people in both community and home-based environments e.g. befriending, IT lessons and support for day to day activities.
Website: http://agefriendlyisland.org/
Key facts
Main target group: Both younger and older people (i.e. intergenerational)
Sector(s): Education, Information and communication
Desired outcome for older people:
Build and maintain relationships
- Ageism
- Intergenerational activities
- Inclusion
- Participation