What is the Buckinghamshire Healthy Ageing Collaborative?
The Healthy Ageing Collaborative is a partnership between the Council and partners from the voluntary and community sector who are working with older people across Buckinghamshire. It provides an opportunity to share resources between sectors – funding, staff time, venues, skills, experience, and insight.
Who is in the Steering Group
A Steering Group has been established to guide the work of the Collaborative, with a wider network of stakeholders and The Clare Foundation is delighted to be part of this group. The other current members of the Steering Group include: Age UK Bucks, Citizens Advice Bucks, Bucks Mind, Carers Bucks, Connection Support, GLL – Better, ICB – Social Prescribing, Heart of Bucks and Buckinghamshire Council representatives in Public Health and the Community Engagement team. The Steering Group is co-chaired by Age UK Bucks and Public Health.
The Aims of the Collaborative
The Collaborative’s first meeting was in October 2022 and will meet quarterly. Its aims are:
- To improve the emotional, social, cognitive, and mental wellbeing of older people, especially thinking about the lack of social contact because of the pandemic.
- To support local communities to be innovative in their approach to ageing well in Bucks.
- We want to work together to develop and deliver local ‘test and learn’ projects to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults across Bucks, focusing on loneliness, isolation, and sense of purpose. For example, things which encourage social interaction, volunteering, mindfulness, and intergenerational activity.
- We also want to develop/use a consistent approach to evaluation, which will help us to learn from successful projects, and those that don’t work so well. Learning will be shared across the sectors through a series of case studies and webinars.
Lucie Smith, Principal at Public Health commented, “We look forward to working together and learning about what new approaches might work to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults across Bucks.”
Mark Russell, CEO, Age UK Bucks said, “With a rapidly ageing population in Bucks that will see one in four of our population over 65 years old by 2030, it is really exciting to be part of a collaboration that is thinking about how to support older people. Together we can contribute to making Bucks a great place to grow older.”
Our Head of Charity Services was pleased to attend the second meeting of the Steering Group in January. The Clare Foundation will keep you updated as work progresses. Please get in touch with any comments, insight, or ideas about the priorities for the Collaborative by emailing Helen at info@theclarefoundation.org or call 01296 798082.
