Community contributions: Healthy ageing webinars

People who help out in their community – from everyday acts of neighbourliness to more formal volunteering roles – tend to be happier and to develop a better quality and quantity of relationships and sense of purpose in their lives. Those who are less well off or have health concerns are much less likely to be able to contribute their time and talents, especially through formal volunteering.

In this webinar we explored the insights gathered on community contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic, what it means to have age-friendly and inclusive volunteering, and whole-system approaches to community-centred public health.

• Chair: Patrick Vernon, Associate Director for Communities, Centre for Ageing Better
• Rachel Monaghan, Programme Manager, Centre for Ageing Better: Guide to age-friendly and inclusive volunteering
• Aideen Young, Evidence Manager, Centre for Ageing Better: Insights into community Contributions during COVID-19
• Jude Stansfield and Jane South, PHE: Whole-system approaches to community-centred public health

Case studies:

• Alison Bunce and Mandy Andrew, Compassionate Inverclyde
• Jos Forester-Melville, Henpower
• Kirsty Walker, Trust for Developing Communities
• Debby Anderson, Hastings Voluntary Action

The UN's Decade on Healthy Ageing launches this year marking a decade of global action to improve the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live. The Consensus Statement on Healthy Ageing, published by Ageing Better and Public Health England sets out a shared vision for making England the best place in the world to grow old. Signatories span the areas of health, employment, housing and communities, and are from academia, local government, the NHS, and the public and voluntary sectors. To date we have over 100 organisations signed up to the Statement’s five principles, which are:

1. Putting prevention first and ensuring timely access to services and support when needed
2. Removing barriers and creating more opportunities for older adults to contribute to society
3. Ensuring good homes and communities
4. Narrowing inequalities
5. Challenging ageist and negative language, culture and practices

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the Statement’s five principles into sharp relief. We want to support signatories to go further and faster and take meaningful action to promote healthy ageing and tackle inequalities. 

In collaboration with Public Health England, we are running a series of webinars that explores each of the Statement’s five principles, the implications of the COVID pandemic, the key issues and lessons learned, followed by presentations from organisations that have implemented actions to address healthy ageing. Members of the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities will add local perspectives to the discussions.

Watch the previous event in the series, Tackling ageism

All our events are recorded and are available to watch on our YouTube channel.

Questions for our panel? Email them to [email protected]