Positive Ageing Programme

 Launched in January 2010, the Positive Ageing Programme brings together the work of the Health Improvement Project and the Mid-life programme to develop a life course approach to promote the health, well-being and independence of people in later life.

Current projects seek to look at healthy, active ageing in its broadest sense and to support all BJF objectives but particularly our vision to see ageing as a natural part of life and to stress the importance of focussing on the individual’s own experiences and aspirations. Within this we aim to promote the structures and support needed to enable people to exercise choice and control in their lives particularly where they experience disadvantage.


Healthy Workplaces

Based on our previous work with employers, BJF’s application to the Health, Work and Well-being Challenge Fund was successful and the new project began on 1st April 2010. The aim of the project is to engage with a range of employers (predominantly small and medium size enterprises) in North Staffordshire to raise awareness of the benefits of a healthy and happy workforce and to encourage them to implement small step programmes to promote health and well-being at work. The project will also engage with employees to encourage them to think about their health & well-being in relation to retaining their employability.

Healthy Workplaces gives us the opportunity to work in partnership with North Staffs Chamber of Commerce who bring their expertise in employer engagement to the project.


Peer Coaching for Later Life

In June 2009 we responded to NESTA’s call for ideas under their Age Unlimited programme which was looking for user centred approaches that enable older people to age well and extend their working lives. A focus group of volunteers met to discuss the programme and to develop a model that we submitted under the ‘Age Readiness’ theme i.e. enabling older people to prepare for the changes that they face in life.

Following an application process that included a two day ‘ideation’ workshop in London, BJF was successful in securing funding for one of only eleven national projects. This will be an interesting project to work on from April 2010 as we will work in partnership with The Dove Service to deliver resilience training to enable individuals to ‘cope’ with key life transitions and also with NESTA who work closely in the development of those projects that they fund.

This work around Age Readiness is a direction of travel that BJF has wanted to go in since being involved in the Department of Health’s National Pre-retirement Planning pilot projects from 2001 – 2003 and it meets one of the activities identified within the Business Plan.


 

 
 

       

                            

          

 



 

   

    

            
  
          

 

 






 

 

 

 





                       

Mid-life Health Project

The project came to a very successful conclusion at the end of March and has achieved significant outcomes. As this was the third phase of our health check work it was important to fully evaluate what had been achieved particularly in terms of impact on those individuals who participated in the project. BJF was successful in securing funding from NHS Stoke-on-Trent for an external evaluation which was completed by Staffordshire University.

The evaluation report launch event was extremely well attended and it is significant that a representative from the Department of Health came to provide a presentation on their online Mid-lifeCheck (which BJF staff and volunteers had been involved in designing) and that a representative from GOWM (Government Office West Midlands) also attended.

The main conclusions and recommendations from the report were very positive and included:

  • The positive benefits of an opportunistic intervention i.e. catching people as they go about their day-to-day business
  • Providing healthy lifestyle checks in a non-medical setting and with approachable, non-judgemental staff from a non-clinical background
  • Reaches people with a real health need rather than the ‘worried well’
  • Acts as a catalyst to link people into primary healthcare

As well as our internal monitoring reports the evaluation report will help to identify future development of this work and particularly in relation to promoting behaviour change amongst people aged 50 and over that will promote good health and active ageing.

Follow the link to view a copy of the final evaluation report.


Health Improvement Project

The project works in partnership with PCTS, statutory and voluntary organisations and the community to develop and deliver the health promotion agenda for older people. For more information contact the project coordinator:June Brammar or click on the links below:

Active in Age: Gentle Exercise Programme for Older Adults
Active in Age: Training the Trainer
Active in Age: Falls Prevention Training Programme
A Community Approach to Falls Prevention - Update 2009


                          


                

                              Active in Age Support Group
 

StokeReads

We were pleased to work in partnership with Stoke-on-Trent’s Library Service in the development of reading groups targeted at older people and people with mental health issues. The project was funded through the Learning Revolution’s Transformation Fund and, although the funding ceased on 31st March 2010, the groups (one of which meets at BJF) are being sustained by the library service who have also commissioned BJF to design and develop a training programme for volunteer reading group facilitators.

 



 

 

 

 

 



 

                     

 

 

 

   

 
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