Melville Age Friendly Accessible Business

Summary

The Melville Age Friendly Accessible Business (MAFAB) Network is a City of Melville initiative working with local businesses to implement age-friendly and accessible initiatives to support the older population, including those living with dementia and people with disabilities, a demographic who make up a significant part of the Melville community. The network was created to support businesses to meet the needs of this important group and is part of a wider strategy to ensure Melville is an accessible, inclusive and age-friendly city.

MAFAB provides opportunities for local business to share and showcase some of their age friendly and accessible innovations, training for staff, receive regular communications on MAFAB and Accessible Inclusive information about up to date research and attend and participate in networking events.

MAFAB has already achieved the following outcomes:

Garden City/AMP, foundation member of MAFAB, was awarded the 2016 WA Seniors Business Award for strategies to provide outstanding service to older people.
Dementia awareness training provided to members
Memory Café, a collaboration between Alzheimer’s Australia WA, Garden City/AMP and the City of Melville, was launched to provide people living with dementia, and their family or carers, a monthly informal get together.
Participation at the City’s Your Business Our Future Business Forum
Reporting to Advocare on the potential for abuse of people in mobility devices at payment counters, as identified by a MAFAB member.
Feedback to the Council on the Ageing (COTA) about the benefits the Garden City Mall Walking group participants provide to MAFAB businesses at Garden City.
Positive customer feedback provided to MAFAB members on exceptional customer service

Website: https://www.melvillecity.com.au/our-community/age-friendly-melville/melville-age-friendly-accessible-business-network

Key facts

Main target group: Older people with chronic health conditions or disability

Other target group(s): Older people in general

Sector(s): Education, Health, Information and communication, Social protection

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Ageism
Accessibility
Ageing in place
Dementia
Elder abuse
Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)
Intergenerational activities
Inclusion
Participation

Contact details

Name: Deena Lazzari

Email address: Naomi.Christensen@melville.wa.gov.au

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

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:

Older People’s Association
Social or health care provider
Volunteers
Private sector

How collaboration worked: Others involved in the project: Alzheimer’s WA, Garden City, Hawaiian’s Melville, Coffea Expresso Bar, Cibo Sano, Melville Theatre Company, Mind the Change Inc., 38 other local businesses in the City of Melville and the Department of Communities

Older people’s involvement: Older people were consulted during the planning process

Details on older people’s involvement: Older people were engaged to make suggestions about what they feel would make businesses more Age-Friendly and accessible.

Moving forward

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

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
Written surveys were conducted of shoppers at Garden City and a number of issues were identified including parking accessibility, mobility restriction in particular shops and changes to stock layout which were of particular concern for those with Dementia. General shop information and accessible toilet facilities were rated highly amongst shoppers and some suggestions made particularly by people with specific access needs included the need for additional accessible toilet facilities to be made available. Feedback was given to the Council on the Ageing (COTA) about the benefits the Garden City Mall Walking group participants provide to MAFAB businesses at Garden City. Positive customer feedback provided to MAFAB members on the exceptional customer service for customers with a disability and/or dementia. Reporting was made to Advocare on the potential for abuse of people in mobility devices at payment counters, as identified by a MAFAB member.

Evaluation report: MAFAB_.pdf

Looking back

Challenges:
To meet the vast potential of the project, greater resourcing from the project lead may be required and is currently being explored.