Later life is a time of change in personal circumstances, health, role, friendships and purpose. The challenge posed by all these changes – particularly if many hit us at once – can be destabilising and sometimes distressing. With all the rich experiences, knowledge and strong social ties that many of us acquire over our lifetime, we have a lot to draw on and a great deal to celebrate too.

The work of the Foundation on ageing over the past 7 years has taught us much about these opportunities and challenges with our work focusing on the oft forgotten psychosocial dimensions of ageing – Who will be in our lives as we age? How do we feel about ageing and how will we manage? Our previous work on intergenerational relationships and on loneliness in later life built on our purpose as a Foundation of strengthening connections and highlighted how transitions experienced as we age can lead to positive or negative outcomes.

After a period of consultation and research, we developed the Transitions in Later Life programme. This is the first funding programme of its kind in the UK to concentrate on improving how people are supported ahead of retirement in more holistic and therapeutic ways. Our research, led by Guy Robertson and Bridget Pettit, shows that therapeutic approaches have done much to build resilience and prepare people for other life transitions but that they had not been widely used for people in pre-retirement. Against a backdrop of reduced state spending, we know that we need to involve others in the delivery of new services and so have identified employers as an important stakeholder in the work.

We are supporting a project cohort of seven organisations with up to £155,000 to test new models with people in pre-retirement. The organisations will form part of a learning community alongside programme evaluators that will help us enhance the evidence base for what works in improving resilience and wellbeing. Our ultimate aims are to enable a small number of models ready for investment to scale and to see other practitioners, particularly employers, showing an interest in using techniques developed by the projects.

The project cohort will be supported by a developmental evaluation led by Bright Purpose. We will be working with Innovation Unit who will prototype a range of co-produced models and then concentrate on testing different delivery routes for these initiatives taking into account their business models and potential for scale; they will also work with members of the project cohort when beneficial to both.

The projects will come to fruition in Autumn 2016 and we hope to identify a small number to further develop to scale with a budget of £150,000, so watch this space.

Read a full description of the organisations we are working with in the programme.

Over the past year, we have been running an online blog to identify ways of supporting people as they go through changes in later life. Visit the blog to engage with some of the discussions that took place.