Here is a brief selection of our recent work, and what we expect to be doing next month.

In April, among other activities, we have…

• signed up our 100th Age and Dementia Friendly business
• completed the first year of the Enhance programme, and it’s been quite a year!
• published an evaluation of phase 1 of Enhance
• joined Independent Age[1] [2] [3] [4] , Age UK, National Pensioners Convention and Centre for Ageing Better in calling for a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing
• delivered our 1st In Person Wise Up to Ageism session to the staff team at Abbey Grange GP Practice
• ran a Dementia Friends session for Lupton Fawcett Solicitors
• totalled up Enhance data -our 14 delivery partners supported 572 older participants in year 1
• prepared the monitoring and evaluation requirements for year two of Enhance
• received an invitation to bid for Motability funding, following a successful expression of interest for their Travel Confidence programme
• published Brief stories: How Travel Connections is helping older people to tackle loneliness with transport to show the impact for participants
• launched the Northern Man Festival marketing campaign and finalised several activities and acts (10-17 June)
• launched Trending elders, our quarterly trends survey

In May 2023, we expect to…

• advertise for a new Friendly Communities Development Worker
• start delivery of Year 2 of the Enhance Programme
• appoint a freelance evaluator to analyse data from year 2 of Enhance
• deliver 4 Dementia Friends sessions to Age and Dementia Friendly businesses, including Yorkshire Dance, Leeds Trinity and Leeds BID
• hold a Friendly Communities event on 18th May at Leeds Civic Hall for Dementia Action Week
• attend Crossgates Dementia Action Week event with a Dementia Friendly Leeds stall
• prepare the final Travel Connections monitoring return for the Department for Transport
• host monitoring and evaluation induction sessions for various LOPF-led programmes including BOSS and Enhance

Rob Cook
Communications Officer