I.T. Clinic

Adding life to years

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Summary

With most services, products and information these days being made available only on-line, there is a skills gap in our ageing population to be able to access information, products and services when their only option is an on-line platform. To bridge this gap, Maroondah City Council and Ringwood Secondary College partnered to deliver the Room 105 pilot project whereby our community members were able to receive one-to-one FREE tuition from students as part of their “”Making a Difference to the Community”” curriculum. Room 105 provided 4 sessions over a 4 week period and we had over 80 consultations. This pilot project proved so successful and both partners saw that there was a huge demand for this free community service that we decided to provide this free community service on a monthly basis. The school provides the venue and the students and Maroondah’s Active & Healthy Ageing Coordinator coordinates the project with registration, matching participant needs to student capacities and for advertising and marketing. This is the first project of its kind in our area, where a school is providing a free community service that is not linked to the Victorian school curriculum and is testament to building a community where intergenerational exchange can strengthen a community in a more meaningful way.

Website: http://www.maroondah.vic.gov.au/ActiveHealthyAgeingInit.aspx

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Sector(s): Social protection

Desired outcome for older people:
Learn, grow and make decisions

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Ageism
Technologies
Intergenerational activities

Contact details

Name: Katsikis, Mary

Email address: mary.katsikis@maroondah.vic.gov.au

Preferred language(s): English, Greek, French

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Older people’s involvement: Older people helped to implement the age-friendly practice

Details on older people’s involvement: As a result of the consultation, our ageing community indicated that they would like to have more involvement with schools in any capacity. The older adults also expressed how they are not familiar with the emerging technologies and need to have access to affordable training opportunities where they feel safe.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Please share with us what you found in detail:
A great demand and interest from both the community and Ringwood Secondary College to build and strengthen our community by providing this IT training and creating an intergenerational exchange that goes beyond the IT Training and helps to demystify the myths about both the older and the younger generations so the learning is both ways as in addition to learning about new technologies they are also sharing their own personal experiences across a number of topics.

Feedback:
Yes, a feedback report was written up and distributed to the students involved in the program and the school.

Expansion plans:
As a result of the Pilot Project Room 105, this free community service has now become available on a monthly basis.

Looking back

Reflections:
Dealing with schools and teachers that are already overloaded can be challenging and as a local government staff, I feel blessed that there was a school and teachers who were willing to open their doors to the community.

Challenges:
The coordination and implementation time was quite huge in the beginning as it had to be handled by the Active & Healthy Ageing Coordinator and sometimes there were communication lags or miscommunication between staff within the school. But once the staff and the principal saw the numbers coming through the initiative they saw that it was in their best interest to seriously pursue this age-friendly practice. The fact that the Coordinator supported them and continues to support them built trust that the initiative would run smoothly.