The journey to become an Age-friendly Barnet

Barnet has recently joined the UK Network of Age-friendly communities. Age UK Barnet is leading on this project with the support of Barnet Council and has appointed me as the Age-friendly Coordinator for the borough.

Age-friendly communities are designed to give older people more power to shape their communities and engage in all aspects of community life. For a lot of the older population, this won’t be new! However, for a large number of the population, there are social and physical barriers to ageing healthily, actively, and happily.

Our age-friendly journey started long before I was in the picture. We are very lucky in Barnet to have some extremely passionate councillors (including an Age-Friendly Champion) who lobbied to become a member of the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities with the help of Charlotte Lewis from the Centre for Ageing Better and local businesses and charities. The council passed the motion to become age-friendly in January.

Having this existing commitment has given our age-friendly journey a great head start. Our application to join the UK Network was accepted in June and we are well into our engagement with local residents and stakeholders which will shape our strategy and action plan.

This engagement stage is crucial. We want older residents in Barnet to be a part of the conversation; not just for age-friendly campaigns, but in all areas of community life. Hence, voices from our older community in Barnet are central to every part of this project, and we want to celebrate and bolster the diversity, power and wisdom in these voices which is all too often ignored or overlooked.

Ageism is a pervasive force in society; the portrayal of older people as a burden is hugely damaging and often prevents people from leading healthy and active later lives. Hence, a lot of the changes necessary for our borough to become age-friendly will be attitude-based; challenging stereotypes, tackling stigma and encouraging positive imagery of what it is actually like to get older.

One particular attitude that I would love to see change is for the term ‘future generation’ to be applied to current generations. We shouldn’t just be considering one future generation but all future generations. Just as the younger generation will be born into a different world, the current adult population will be ageing in a different world. It is up to us now to make sure that this world is one in which older people are active, valued and fulfilled in their physical and social communities. The prioritisation of younger generations in the vision of a future world is nothing but ageist. Considering our population is rapidly ageing (by 2041, Barnet’s population of over 65s is expected increase by 57% from the 2021 Census report), we cannot afford to overlook the needs of this age group.

On similar lines to this, the benefits of an age-friendly community are not exclusive to the older population. Active ageing is a lifelong process, and encouraging people to plan for and then lead a fulfilling later life starts long before retirement age. Indeed, a large number of the population will never ‘feel old’ and will continue to live an active and engaged life. Highlighting that there is no one route for later life will help everyone age with confidence and pride.

Furthermore, the physical benefits of an age-friendly community reach the whole community. Accessible buildings and streets enhance the mobility and independence of people of all ages with disabilities. Secure neighbourhoods encourage children and women as well as older people to go outdoors in confidence to participate in social activities, and the whole community and local economy benefits and relies on the participation of older people in volunteer or paid work.

Our official Age-friendly Barnet launch is taking place on October 1^st during our celebrations of Silver Sunday/ International Day of Older Persons at Middlesex University. There will be entertainment, talks, advice and information from local businesses and organisations on the day, so it will be the perfect opportunity to mark the start of our age-friendly journey. We’ll be encouraging residents to evaluate our progress so far and tell us what their future Barnet looks like; and I can’t wait to start working towards their age-friendly vision.

Pippa Mannerings is the Project Lead at Age UK Barnet responsible for creating an Age-friendly borough working closely with the local authority.  Pippa graduated from Sheffeld University in 2020 and has worked in a variety of roles including charity Natural England before joining Age UK Barnet five months ago.