Project 27 September 2010 – 19 September 2011

The development of County Cavan as an Age Friendly county has been a long held objective of the Cavan O50 Network. To achieve this objective the physical and social barriers that prevents the full participation of older people in the social, economic and cultural life of their communities and society in general needed firstly to be identified and secondly eliminated. While many of these barriers were identified in the network’s survey of older people, carried out in 2008, this did not provide a basis for the development of an Age Friendly County.

The next step in the process was a need to determine how age-friendly our communities were. To make this determination pilot Age Friendly audits were carried out on the communities of Kilnaleck and Killeshandra. In keeping with our ethos of older people participating at every level of society older people (network members and local older people) carried out the audits. The audits were carried out to criteria detailed in the World Health Organisation’s Global Age Friendly Cities Guide and the Canadian “Age Friendly Rural and Remote Communities Guide”.

We, in the Cavan O50 Network, believe that this report can not only form the basis for a strategy to develop Cavan as an Age Friendly county, but can be used as a toolkit for auditing communities nation-wide.

Direct Project Outcomes

An Age Friendly Audit assessment, led by local older people, was completed in two areas (Kilnaleck and Killeshandra) with the co-operation of other local stakeholders and statutory bodies. Recommendations for action have been identified, the process has been documented, and tools to facilitate the audit process have been devised and tested.

The skills and capacity of network members was developed through training in Public Relations\Leadership\Media and ICT. The PR training covered a precise understanding of what Public Relations are, and how it can effectively be used to promote a community based programme. Simple but effective Public Relations plans were developed using fundamental planning components that included: media relations, public profile, objectives, strategies and tactics. The group were also equipped to deal with the whole marketing mix and learned how to create effective PR materials in a variety of forums for the different publics including establishing relationships with all local media. Information Technology training included Introduction to Computing, Keyboard skills, Access to the Internet, Creation of email accounts, Social Media, Working with external drives e.g. uploading photographs, scanning, Introduction to Word press.

050 Network continues to broadcast twice monthly on the local community radio and have got coverage on the local commercial radio station together with coverage of events in the local newspaper.

As a consequence of our higher profile, the work that we have done, and the capacity building supports that we have provided, the Membership base of the Network has significantly increased.

The capacity building work and our commitment to the active inclusion of Network members in project has served to strengthen the organisational structure of the group.

Cross Border Forum set up. Networking events attended in Wexford, Louth and Kildare. Networking event hosted in Cavan with Kerry ‘Get Vocal’. Launch of Audit Report in Kilnaleck. GV networking events attended in Dublin.

Negotiations have been initiated to examine opportunities for a pilot that would actively involve older people in influencing the local delivery of Primary care services.

In-direct Outcomes of the Project

Opportunity for the 050 Network to become the Cavan Older Peoples Forum as outlined in the programme for government.

Invitation from the County Age Friendly Alliance to provide 4 representatives on that new body

Invitation to present at Countywide event during Social Inclusion week.

Older people represented on local LCDP board and SIMS group

Provision of a toolkit for auditing communities nationwide

Invitation to work collaboratively with local artist in the sculpturing of a piece depicting peace for display in Cavan Town

Involvement in various events for the Bealtaine Festival including a drama written and presented by Network members .Organised the ‘Dawn Chorus’