Representing the voice of older people - setting up an older people’s forum

As an Age Friendly town, city, county, you want to know you are representing the voice of older people - and more than that, the voice of a wide cross section of the older people who live in your place. As we know older people are simply people who are over a given age, they don’t suddenly become a homogenous group although they are often treated as such. They will have some common needs and some will vary..

• They might vary in age from 55 -105
• They might be men, or women
• They could be cis-gendered or part of the LGBTQ+ community
• They might have family who has lived in the county for as many generations they can remember, or have arrived and worked here since they were 18, or come last year
• They might have moved to live near family, or health services, or lived on the same road for the whole of their lives

Clearly you can’t represent everyone’s voice individually, but you can think about older people as representative of society and represent the spectrum of your residents.

Here in Leeds we have an older people’s forum that’s been up and running in a range of forms since 1997 - and we try to represent the voices of older people in a range of ways. Getting to where we are now isn’t a quick journey, there have been both lucky breaks and bumps in the road, and it’s certainly not the only way you might represent those older people, but we do have some positive ideas to share.

This session will look at how it has worked in Leeds, and some different approaches from across the UK.

You’ll find out about the pros and cons of helping to be that ‘voice’ for older people in your area, how the bespoke offer from the Good Practice Mentors could help you with different aspects of the process from recruitment to co-production and welcome, and we can signpost you to other training and organisations who can offer advice.

This session will be run as a 2 hour session (including a virtual teabreak - though you’ll need to bring your own cuppa) with opportunities for questions and discussion between participants.