Ageing and Health
While the societal challenge on ageing is led by the Institute of Ageing and Health in the Medical Faculty, many of the issues faced by older people and society stem from the lack of housing that meets needs across the life-course; supportive neighbourhoods that don’t provide an infrastructure for everyday life; poor transport linkages and a lack of opportunities for older people to engage in community activities. These are issues that concern built environment professionals and researchers.
Beacon theme leader
Director of Engagement Rose Gilroy was invited to become a co-theme leader on the Changing Age programme working alongside Lynne Corner from the Institute of Ageing and Health to promote two way interaction between the University and Newcastle’s older people and their organisations. In her capacity as a theme leader Rose is a member of the Co-Inquiry Action Research Group that will be reporting back at the end of the year with case studies, good practice models and guidelines on ethics as well as the practicalities of co-inquiry with community groups.
Graham Rowles comes to APL
As part of its commitment to the societal challenge of ageing, each faculty was asked to nominate a visiting scholar. Rose Gilroy’s nominations were accepted and from mid June to mid July 2010 Professor Graham Rowles joined us from the University of Kentucky.
While he was here Graham gave a public lecture, he also took part in three research seminars with colleagues from Newcastle and Northumbria campuses and members of Newcastle Elders Council. The presentations from these seminars will be available here shortly.
APL sharing its expertise with the wider community
Since 1999 Rose Gilroy has been a member of the Housing (now Lifetime Neighbourhoods) working group of the Elders Council/Quality of Life Partnership www.elderscouncil.org.uk.
This group has been involved in a number of projects that have engaged older people in the city in creative ways that have impacted on city council thinking about housing, space and place. With representatives of the Group Rose is working with city council officers to develop the City Council’s Older Person’s Accommodation Strategy which will shape the responses to housing management, development and services for the future.
For 24 years Rose Gilroy has been a trustee and for the last 18 years Chair of the West End Befrienders – a registered charity working through volunteers to provide befriending to older people across the ethnic spectrum in the west end of Newcastle, www.westendbefrienders.org.uk. In addition to support to older people, special projects within West End Befrienders include support to bereaved and housebound Asian elders and creative activities and befriending into four west end care homes.
Bringing students and older people together
Creating an age friendly neighbourhood- sharing our findings
In 2010 a group of stage three Planning students have been exploring how Walker Riverside, which is undergoing a major redevelopment, can be an age friendly neighbourhood. As part of this enquiry, members of the Elders Council’s Older Person Friendly City Working Group presented their work on the city centre and parks to students and students will present their findings to an audience that includes members of the Elders Council.
Co-inquiry with older people
In spring 2009, working to a brief agreed with the Elders Council and the Newcastle Quality of Life Partnership, five Planning Diploma students undertook a series of workshops in a disadvantaged neighbourhood (Cowgate) and an affluent neighbourhood (Jesmond). Their aim was to find out from older people what they felt about their local environment and from there to formulate recommendations with older people for making their neighbourhoods more age friendly.
The Jesmond workshops raised issues of communication- there were clearly many activities that older people might engage in but not everyone knew about them. An important issue flushed out was the relationship with students and a link was made between older people and representatives of SCAN. In Cowgate transport and lack of activities were major problems for people. As a result of the workshops, a programme of activities open to all older Cowgate residents started in one of the sheltered housing schemes and is still flourishing. A “hop to the shops” service was started by Community Transport. The Cowgate report has been used by Newcastle City Council as part of its evidence base about the estate.
Read the reports: Creating Older Person Friendly Neighbourhoods - Cowgate (1691KB) and Creating Older Person Friendly Neighbourhoods - Jesmond (1230 KB)
Co-Inquiry: Cross generational working
In 2010 another five Planning Diploma students have been working to establish an engagement strategy that will bring generations together to consider how two areas of under-used public space in Cowgate might be used. Working to a brief from the Elders Council/Newcastle Quality of Life Partnership, Newcastle City Council’s Community Engagement and Development Services, Newcastle City Council’s Community Arts Team and Places for People (Registered Social Landlord) students are engaging in a series of interactive events to create community cohesion, a stronger sense of identity for Cowgate and a more positive image to the outside world.
Barbara Douglas from the Elders Council provides a recent update on the way both these projects have impacted on Cowgate:
"A Community Development Worker invited me to an event in Cowgate today to celebrate a ‘Yesteryear’ project they have just completed. It turned out to be a project which was done with the Chatterbox Club in Highmoor Court and involved Tyne and Wear Museums and an artist. The ‘product’ of this work is a beautiful collage of shops from yesteryear. It is a delightful piece of work and clearly there was lots of fun along the way in producing it. They have ideas for using the work locally, especially taking it to events with younger people – sharing the history and sharing skills.
Part of the reason I am so excited is that I vividly remember when we did the first student project with Rose’s team from Newcastle University we went into Highmoor Court and found that the lounge was hardly used and the Sheltered Housing Officer could barely get people together for a cup of tea! To move from that, to the position they are in now where they are taking on this sort of project, but also, the sheltered housing officer informed me that they still have rookie golf, they are getting a new kitchen, they have an old piano and a large TV to have film afternoons. People will probably have forgotten the work we put into this but I felt a warm glow to think that we had at least been catalysts in making some of this happen. As if I wasn’t excited enough by that, a Newcastle City Council Officer then told me that as a result of the subsequent group of Newcastle University students who worked on Cowgate, there is now a lovely garden in the small estate which is opposite Highmoor Court. I walked by it and it is a delightful garden. The City Officers are clearly very pleased with it, and say that the tenancies in that part of the estate are quite stable as people really like it. Sometimes, we don’t get to see where the ripples go when we drop a stone into a pool, so it has been a real pleasure for me (and I hope for you) to see what has happened with this work."