Reaching out to older people within the wider community

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Reaching out to older people within the wider
community

• Debbie Dixon
• Information Services Manager
• Age Concern Bexley

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If you really want to help somebody, first of
all you must find him where he is and start
there. This is the secret of caring. If you
cannot do that, it is only an illusion if you
think you can help another human being. Helping
somebody implies youre understanding more than
he does, but first of all you must understand
what he understands. If you cannot do that, you
understanding will be of no avail. All true
caring starts with humility. The helper must be
humble in his attitude towards the person he is
wanting to help. He must understand that helping
is not dominating, but serving. Caring simply
implies patience as well as acceptance of not
being right and of not understanding what the
other person understands. Kierkegaard, the
Danish philosopher 1849
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Bexley in Focus

• Projected changes, as estimated by the Census
  2001, in the population of Bexley estimates
• An increase in people aged 50 54 by 24
• An increase in people aged 85 and over by 35
• Currently the BME community makes up over 10 of
  Bexleys population.

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We Love Older People
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We Love Older People
Not just the happy ones
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We Love Older People
But the not so happy ones too!
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Who is the Wider Community?

• The dictionary defines the words Wider and
  Community as
• Having great extent or range including much or
  many a wide selection.
• A group of people living in the same locality
  and under the same government.

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Who is the Wider Community?
Age Concern Bexleys definition of the wider
community is those from all walks of life who
would benefit either directly, or indirectly,
from receiving assistance from service provision.
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Thinking Outside of the Box.
The wider community consists of a plethora of
need, wants and desires, each differing from the
other. As a result Age Concern Bexley has needed
to be innovative in its approach to creating and
developing services. Each tailor made to
encompass the needs and requirements of older
people within the London Borough of Bexley.

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Thinking Outside of the Box.
Legislation around inclusion is clear. However
given the limited resources experienced by all,
thinking outside of the box is essential. By
feeling the fear, and doing it anyway, Age
Concern Bexley has made leaps and bounds in the
field of inclusion.

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The Secret of our Success

• Networking is by far the most useful tool in
  making links into the relevant organisations
  that have access to the communities that you wish
  to target. This can be achieved by
• Events and conferences
• Attending meetings
• Forming partnerships and alliances
• Being transparent if you dont know, say so
• Volunteers
• Intergenerational project

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The Secret of our Success
Events and conferences By facilitating specific
events, for example, The Many Colours and
Cultures of Age, we were able to explore and
highlight the needs of older people, in relation
to the Supporting People Programme.
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The Secret of our Success
Attending Meetings With limited staff resource,
time is money, however it is worth the investment
to achieve the ultimate goal. In Bexley we are
members of the executive committee for Bexley
Council Racial Equality (BCRE) which gives us
access to service providers from the minority
communities.

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The Secret of our Success
Forming Partnerships and Alliances We at Age
Concern Bexley are very keen to pool our
resources with agencies, groups and providers to
create projects that will embrace and reach the
wider community. Age Concern Bexley prides
itself on its partnership with the local Pension
Service. Our One Stop Shop is a recently
developed service which is nestled in the heart
of Bexleys main shopping area accessible to all
sectors of the community.

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The Secret of our Success
Being Transparent if you dont know, say so We
all have an inbuilt desire to not offend, and in
doing so, can unintentionally alienate ourselves,
and others. In our experience asking questions is
far better received than making assumptions.
Armed with this information we give ourselves
permission to say, We dont know.
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The Secret of our Success
Volunteers By far the most important aspect of
the secret of our success is the volunteers that
we recruit. Without their diverse range of expert
knowledge around their own communities and the
relevant specific needs of older people we would
not have achieved our success to date. Age
Concern Bexley recruits volunteers from minority
communities and has successfully trained these
volunteers to assist in the interaction between
us and the wider community.

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The Secret of our Success
Intergenerational Project Having facilitated an
event entitled, You Were Here Before Us, we
were able to bridge the gap between both young
and older people. In doing so we set up an
intergenerational project which has older people
giving live anecdotal information around what it
was like to live in a bygone era. This project
in particular has opened the doors to
generational discussion and non-judgementalism.
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If At First You Dont Succeed, Keep Trying.

• Keep an open mind to failure, as well as
  success.
• We all make mistakes, thats why pencils have
  erasers.
• Dont blame, weve all been through the
  initiation of fire.
• Be prepared to be critical, but be sure to be
  constructive as well.

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Building a House for Diversity
A giraffe and an elephant consider themselves
friends, but when the giraffe invited the
elephant into his home to join him in a business
venture, problems ensued. The house was designed
to meet the giraffes needs, with tall ceilings
and narrow doorways, and when the elephant
attempted to manoeuvre, doorways buckled, stairs
cracked and walls began to crumble. Analysing the
chaos, the giraffe saw the problem with the door
was that it was too narrow. He suggested that the
elephant take aerobic classes to get him down to
size. The problem with the stairs, he said, were
that they were too weak. He suggested that the
elephant take ballet lessons to get him light on
his feet. But the elephant was unconvinced of
this approach. To him, the house was the problem.