Ageing Better Isle of Wight (also known as Age Friendly Island) was a five-year (2015-2020) partnership funded by the National Lottery Community Fund that aimed to make the Isle of Wight a great place to grow older, encourage better relations between generations, and tackle social isolation and loneliness. In April 2016 NDTi were commissioned to conduct a four-year evaluation of the Programme.
Ageing Better Isle of Wight was one of fourteen partnerships funded as part of the Fulfilling Lives: Ageing Better programme. Managed by Age UK Isle of Wight, 16 projects including Alzheimer Café, Community Navigators, Digital Inclusion, Men in Sheds and SingAbout were delivered by voluntary sector and private sector organisations.
The mixed methods evaluation included interviews and focus groups with 157 individuals and analysis of 1,234 responses to the national evaluation questionnaire.
The evaluation found evidence of improved wellbeing and reduced social isolation for older people participating in the Programme and, through working preventatively, potentially saved significant costs to the health and social care sectors on the Isle of Wight.
The Age Friendly Island project which focused on making the Island age friendly has had particular success through developing and delivering high quality age awareness training and generating impressive cross sector working to address issues that affect older people on the Island.
A short summary of the impact of the Programme can be found here
The full evaluation report, which looks in more detail at: What works for older people? What works for the Isle of Wight? What works for the Programme? What are the costs and the benefits? can be found here
Through the four-year evaluation we have also published the following report:
‘Becoming an Age Friendly Island’ – a focused report on the work of the Age Friendly Island project
To find out more about the project, please contact Naomi Harflett the Project Manager: naomi.harflett@ndti.org.uk
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