Causeway Coast and Glens Council adopts Age-Friendly strategy
Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council members have approved the recently-developed Age-Friendly Strategy and Action Plan.
An officers’ report, presented at a Leisure and Development Committee meeting on Tuesday, June 18, sought approval of the plan, which will “enable the council’s age-friendly programme to move into implementation stage”.
The report added: “In June 2020, council approved the offer of funding from the Public Health Agency (PHA) to recruit and host an age-friendly coordinator for Causeway Coast and Glens. As a result, council has engaged with community planning partners to develop an Ageing Well Model.
“This work also identified the need for partners to work on the wider ‘Age Friendly’ framework, which was developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to support the development of age-friendly communities.
“Following the council’s approval to accept the PHA’s funding, and to facilitate this work, an age-friendly coordinator was appointed in August 2020.
“The main purpose of the coordinator’s role was to work to an agreed set of objectives as specified by the PHA, to drive the implementation of the WHO model strategically across the borough, and to work with internal council partners and external statutory and community / voluntary sector partners.
“A co-design process was implemented to ensure older residents in the council were integral contributors to a process that affects them.
“This co-design process included engagement workshops with the Age-friendly Alliance and Age-friendly Forum, focus groups and meetings with statutory, community and voluntary organisations, and creative workshops and other targeted engagement with groups who might otherwise have not been heard."