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

In February, among other activities, we have…

• closed the Household Support Fund, having awarded £620,000 to community groups in Leeds.
• shared the results of our Trending Elders survey at Leeds City Council Equalities Away Day. Please complete the latest survey – your responses are so helpful in our conversations about the third sector with our strategic partners.
• published three ‘How to’ videos to help people be online and stay safe, from our BOSS project..
• started the Home Air Quality workshops (at Armley Helping Hands, CrossGates Good Neighbours, Coffee Pot Memory Cafe and MHA Pudsey)  as part of the sustainability project funded by Zurich Community Trust
• started to plan the monitoring and evaluation requirements for year three of Enhance
• responded to a request for information about Happy Cab (a legacy of Travel Connections) from a strategy and projects officer at the City of London Corporation, who had read about it in a government report on loneliness.
• welcomed Cllr Salma Arif (Executive Member for Adult Social Care, Public Health and Active Lifestyles) to a team meeting to learn more about the work of LOPF
• supported The Performance Ensemble to plan and deliver Creative Healthy Ageing arts-based sessions
• delivered Wise Up to Ageism to staff teams from Connecting Leeds and Zurich
• delivered Dementia Friends to volunteers from Otley Action for Older People
• created and run a new course for community groups which combines information about what happens to people as they become isolated, and the best way to welcome them into your group. Once tested it will become part of the Good Practice Mentor offer.
• in partnership with GAMCARE and local community venues, continued to create Gambling Awareness Volunteers across the city, to support those affected by gambling-related harm.
• started working with the Women’s Group at Hamara on BOSS
• attended the Diversifying Voices in Research event at Hamara

In March 2024, we expect to…

• host the Ageing Better – Age Friendly Ambassador event, where you can get a  free health MOT from Leeds Beckett Sports and Science students, and take part in taster sessions for dance, walking netball and walking football. (Armley Leisure Centre, Thursday March 7, 11:00-1:00)
• support the Age Friendly Steering Group and the Preservative Party who will be out on Wednesday 20 March, talking about Ageism for Ageism Action Day. We encourage everyone to do the Are you Ageist? quiz as part of the national campaign, and get involved!
• prepare a Driving Change Together end-of-project report for our funder, The Road Safety Trust
• receive a final draft of the Enhance Year 2 qualitative and quantitative evaluation report from evaluation partners
• learn from the experiences of Enhance delivery partners before finalising the monitoring and evaluation requirements for Year 3
• start work on a Creative Healthy Ageing toolkit to share learning from the arts-based events
• run a version of  Wise Up to Ageism for people outside Leeds, including 2 sessions on the Centre for Ageing Better’s Age Without Limits action day (March 20) Book your free place.
• announce some exciting news about Men’s Health Unlocked. (See a graphic summary of MHU achievements in 2022-2023).
• run the Leeds Care Partnership Lunch and Learn event on  BOSS and Google Translate
• announce Enhance Year 3 delivery partners
• The Age Friendly Steering Group will: peer review Highways and Transportation’s new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion presentation; look at the usability of the Housing Survey for the Older People’s Public Health Team, and work on the second stage of the Manage My Meds toolkit for the Yorkshire & Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration.

Rob Cook
Communications Officer