Designing all-age friendly approaches for communities: Launch of learning from the IntergenerationAll programme
On Wednesday the 3rd of July we launched www.intergenerationall.org, a learning resource to share the results of the IntergenerationAll programme, including: Designing Sustainable Community Action – a toolkit for practitioners, Policy Implications – a briefing on the policy context for intergenerational work across the UK, , Summary Evaluation – key learning from the programme, and Learning from the Team – reflections from Programme partners
The IntergenerationAll programme supported eighteen pilot projects between 2010 and 2011, of which eleven took place in the UK and seven in Portugal. The aim of the projects was to test and implement ideas for intergenerational activities and partnerships in which beneficiaries were involved in the co-design of people-centred schemes. The projects focused primarily on bringing together people of different ages, young and old, to address areas of shared concern. Focus issues included isolation and loneliness, dislocation through migration, and environmental protection. A range of models and approaches to intergenerational practice were employed throughout. The positive impact of co-design and prototyping methods was ensured with the help of thinkpublic, the UK’s leading service design agency, and the Beth Johnson Foundation. These organisations helped the projects consider routes towards longer-term sustainability of their work.
The event invited senior stakeholders from the public and social sectors to consider the strategies and measures necessary to create communities that value people of all ages. Those contributing to the event included Baroness Sally Greengross, who outlined the imperative for political and practical action to enable positive relations across generations; Alan Hatton-Yeo, Chief Executive of the Beth Johnson Foundation, who presented a set of policy summaries detailing the key implications of these approaches for policy makers in the devolved nations; and Deborah Szebeko and Ella Britton of thinkpublic, who launched the toolkit for practitioners on how to design intergenerational ventures with communities. A report on the day’s activities is now available to download from the IntergenerationAll site.
In addition to the IntergenerationAll programme we also support the European Map of Intergenerational Learning (www.EMIL-network.eu). As part of our sustainability strategy for IntergenerationAll we are going to work with EMIL to build reciprocal links and to produce a monthly summary of key European news and developments to publish on the IntergenerationAll site.