Presentation of the Age-Friendly Manchester Team

This presentation provides an overview of the impact of the first annual Festival of Ageing, which took place in July 2018.

The Committee received a presentation of the Age-Friendly Manchester Team which provided an overview of the impact of the first annual Festival of Ageing, which took place in July 2018.

Some of the main points and themes within the presentation included:

• How the festival was developed, including a co-design event with older people;
• The aims of the festival;
• An overview of the events; and
• One of the attendees, John Biggs, speaking about his experience of the Retro Summer Music Festival event and the benefits this brought to local people.

A Member who was also the Lead Member for Age-Friendly Manchester thanked those involved for their work.  She reported that the festival aimed to raise the profile of older people in Greater Manchester.  She informed Members that Greater Manchester had this year become the first Age-Friendly Region in the UK, as designated by the World Health Organisation.  She reported that this work was a starting point for joint working to progress equality for older people in a range of areas such as employment, housing and making communities more age- and disability-friendly. 

The Head of the Greater Manchester Ageing Hub informed Members about work taking place at a Greater Manchester level, the region’s commitment to improving older people’s lives and the importance of older people having a sense of purpose in their lives.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• Whether the festival would be an annual event;
• The advertising for the festival and whether this was able to reach isolated older people; and
• Whether attendees who needed additional support were identified and signposted to other services.

Claire Evans from 4CT, lead partner in the Festival of Ageing, reported that no budget had been set aside to fund this in future years but that the partners involved were seeking funding to continue to run the festival in future years.  She informed Members that one of the learning points from the festival was to allocate a larger budget for advertising the festival, as it had not received the level of press attention that they had hoped for.  Kirsty Bagnall from the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO) reported that her organisation had used its networks to reach socially isolated older people. 

Claire Evans reported that the town centre events and some of the other events had had information points and service providers present to advise and signpost older people to services.  She informed Members that she was aware of socially isolated individuals who had been identified through attending festival events and who had consequently joined new groups and activities.  She advised Members that, since the festival, the partners involved had discussed using other networks, like libraries and GPs, to reach more older people.  The Committee discussed groups in different areas of the city which organised trips or events for older people which helped to tackle social isolation.

Decisions

1.            To thank the guests for their contribution.

2.            To note that the Committee would welcome resources being made available to fund this in future years.