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Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway

Inclusive communities: opportunities and challenges in older age. Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway Respond! Housing Association National Conference Dublin, 23 October 2013. Irish Centre for Social Gerontology. Research on ageing and the life course

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Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway

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  1. Inclusive communities: opportunities and challenges in older age Thomas Scharf Director, Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, NUI Galway Respond! Housing Association National Conference Dublin, 23 October 2013

  2. Irish Centre for Social Gerontology • Research on ageing and the life course • Informing policy and practice • Education and training

  3. Ageing and place: a major focus • Places where people age • Different types of community • Different types of housing • Institutional and non-institutional settings • Different types of people • What makes places good places to age in?

  4. Inclusive communities start at ‘home’ • “Home is territory – a place of possession and ownership that may be fiercely defended. Home is a place of safety and security. Often, home is the spatial fulcrum of our life, a place of centering that may become the core of our being and a location from which we venture forth into a potentially hostile world outside and beyond and to which we return for shelter. Home is a place of freedom, a location where we can let go and be ourselves”(Rowles, 2003: 115)

  5. Inclusive communities reach beyond ‘home’ • ‘Home’ seems to matter more as people age • But feeling at ‘home’ can be challenged in hostile communities

  6. Age-friendly communities • WHO Global Age-friendly Cities initiative

  7. Age-friendly communities: a new definition • “Underpinned by a commitment to respect and social inclusion, an age-friendly community is engaged in a strategic and ongoing process to facilitate active ageing by optimising its physical and social environments and its supporting infrastructure”(Liddle et al., 2013: 6) • Age-friendly communities as ‘inclusive’ communities: • As locations where there is a good ‘fit’ between people and place

  8. Applying the new definition

  9. Age-friendly communities: opportunities • Changing the language of ageing: from ‘burden’ to ‘opportunity’ and ‘contribution’ • Making ageing everybody’s business: public sector, private sector, community and voluntary sector, citizens, communities etc. • Ensuring that communities become more habitable for people as they age • Preventing ‘home’-lessness in later life: ensuring that communities become more habitable for people as they age

  10. Age-friendly communities: challenges • Ensuring full involvement of older people • Securing commitment to a strategic and ongoing improvement process • Extending age-friendliness to different types of place (housing schemes; care settings; prisons; commercial spaces etc.) • Thinking about the age-friendly characteristics that matter to different groups of older people • Providing evidence to assess age-friendliness

  11. Contact details thomas.scharf@nuigalway.ie www.icsg.ie

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