Case study: Ageing Well Ambassadors in Sunderland

The need

Sunderland City Council’s vision, expressed in its Healthy City Plan, is that everyone in Sunderland should have the opportunity to live a healthy old age.  They knew to achieve this goal it was fundamental to empower residents aged 50 and over to have an impact on decisions affecting them. Their challenge was to create the most suitable mechanism to do this. 

The solution

The Public Health Ageing Well team in Sunderland City Council (on behalf of the Strategic Ageing Well Board, which reports to the Health and Wellbeing board) facilitated a session with a small group of older people to seek their advice. It soon became clear that they favoured creating a network of volunteers to act as community connectors.  

When deciding what to call the role, the group preferred the term ‘Ageing Well Ambassadors’: it gave the sense of agency that being a ‘champion’ seemed to lack for them. They felt the ‘ambassador’ designation best reflected their ability to act as experts formally and informally, to influence and provide feedback.  

An initial group of Ageing Well Ambassadors, a project group from Sunderland City Council and the voluntary and community sector considered a few logos for branding the network, and selected the ‘dancing people’ design, based on the Centre for Ageing Better’s age-positive icons.   

Role

Ambassadors and the project group worked to create their Ageing Well Ambassador role description which included:  

• Raise awareness and promote age-friendly initiatives within your workplace, community or to the general public
• Spread the message, talk to people about it, be an 'age positive' champion
• Feedback information or questions to the Ageing Well Board for prompt resolution
• Share information on social media relating to Age Friendly Sunderland
• Make sure that the voice of people who are ageing well is heard by encouraging people to take part in consultations, campaigns and other opportunities for people to contribute
• Encourage change when services are inaccessible or exclude ageing well people, making suggestions for adaptations and signposting for advice and guidance
• Promote age-friendly initiatives
• Encourage local businesses to sign up to age-friendly initiatives

The benefits

Since starting the Ageing Well Ambassador scheme in 2021, Sunderland’s network has grown to over 200 ambassadors. In this time, the approach has shown various positive benefits for the place, the people involved, and their Age-friendly partners.

For the place, the network helps tackle stereotypes in the city about older people. One initiative stimulated by the Ambassadors was the creation of a news team led by older people for older people, supported by social enterprise Yellow Jigsaw. Made up of community reporters aged 50 plus from across Sunderland, they capture stories that break ageing stereotypes, and report on arts, culture and sport, whilst shining light on the challenges faced by the ageing population.

For the people involved, some of the main benefits (according to a survey carried out in 2023) are the chance for social participation and to feel valued. One of Sunderland’s oldest Ambassadors, John Lloyd, 94, says: “I now talk to trainee nurses at Sunderland University medical school. I don’t want to be nursed, but I do know the nurses may gain a little by talking to an older person who is not ill!” 

This has seen a range of results including older residents shaping the city's Strength and Balance programme, their local dementia and ageism training, and the creation of a piece of artwork for the city.

The learning

Work to diversify the network

The first volunteers to come forward as Ambassadors were largely people with experience in teaching, government or community development. By using word of mouth and informal events, the base of volunteers widened, and diversity increased. Ambassadors are spread across all parts of the city, and people with a disability now make up about a quarter of the Ambassador group.

The Ambassador voice was vital in helping Sunderland understand the best approach to future recruitment. They learnt that events to recruit new Ambassadors should be held in all five areas of the city, to achieve good geographical coverage. A warm welcome tends to work well, with presentations about what the role involves and what’s happening in the city.

Recognise and further support people’s contributions

To show volunteers they are valued and to keep them involved, Sunderland organises regular opportunities for ambassadors to meet each other, online and face-to-face including an annual event. Ambassadors also offered online training where appropriate.

Don’t let limited resource hold you back

The good news too is that the initiative need not be costly. In Sunderland, besides the time of one key worker and small cost for promotional materials, budget expenditure has mainly been on events to recruit volunteers and maintain relationships with them.