Finding and welcoming the people you would like to meet at your group

This session will help you to:

• find and engage older people in their local communities, including older people less likely to access formal groups, services, activities and support. E.g. older men.
• Overcome ‘it’s not for me’ barriers and preconceptions to accessing groups or activities
• Provide an active ‘warm welcome’ to engage new people at groups or activities, build rapport and help them to build social connections.
  

Workshop duration: 90 minutes

The Good Practice Mentor Team will be:

• Sharing insight from older people around preconceptions and barriers to engagement with a focus on groups.
• Looking at how to describe and pitch your offer –using language and images to address barriers to engagement and provide an effective steppingstone to engagement.
• Offering examples of outreach friendly comms to promote your offer to harder to engage older people.
• Looking at practical strategies to find and engage the older people you want to meet. Where and how to promote your offer including displaying physical information and how to approach and engage people out on the street.
• Considering how a conscious approach to welcoming people and configuring your space will enable you to keep people engaged
• Explaining why a welcoming approach across your whole organisation can help
• Touching on keeping older people in the lead, working with volunteers and managing challenging behaviour

There will be two opportunities to work in breakout groups with others to give you a chance to consider how this might work practically in your setting

This session will be delivered by

Joanne Stapleton, GPM from Ageing Better in Camden - where they proactively met and engaged with thousands of older people who were not already in contact with, or were reluctant to access, formal services or support.

Jessica Duffy, GPM from LOPF, where the Time to Shine programme worked with over 80 local organisations to identify the ways they supported and engaged older people, especially those reluctant to engage with groups.