Age Friendly Programme

Overview

What is an Age Friendly Community?

As people become older, the communities in which they live become more important. Age friendly communities empower people so that they can continue to lead independent lives in good health, stay engaged in their communities and remain socially included and active in different roles; as neighbours, friends, family members, colleagues and volunteers.

Older People face increasing challenges due to changes that age brings. In an age friendly community, policies, services and structures related to the physical and social environment are designed to support and enable older people to “age actively” – that is, to live in security, enjoy good health and continue to participate fully in society.

An age friendly community is a good place to grow old. Age friendly communities foster healthy and active ageing and thus enable well-being throughout life. They help people to remain independent for as long as possible, and provide care and protection when they are needed, respecting older person’s autonomy and dignity. Becoming an age friendly community is not a defined state or end point but rather a continuing journey towards adapting structures and processes to support the health and wellbeing of older people.

An age friendly community must:

• Establish mechanisms to involve older person throughout the age friendly process.
• Develop a baseline assessment of the age friendliness of the community under the 8 domains as set by the World Health Organisation.
• Develop a three-year community-wide action plan.
• Identify measurements to monitor progress against this plan and ensure we are “Making a Difference” to the lives of those who live in the Borough.

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council want to help to improve the quality of life for older people living in the Borough, we want to learn about the issues you face and how you are managing in everyday life. We want to know how your life could be better within our Borough.

Why your views matter

You can offer invaluable insights to the key challenges for those ageing within our communities. We will use the feedback to assess the Borough in relation to the 8 themes highlighted within the survey.

What happens next

We appreciate you taking the time to complete this survey as the information gathered will highlight the priorities that Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council and community planning partners will be addressing within the Borough to ensure that this Borough provides the opportunities for ageing well.