Summary
The ENJOY (Exercise interveNtion outdoor proJect in the cOmmunitY) programs aim to positively impact on older people’s health through well-designed, inclusive, age-friendly outdoor spaces, and to drive social change and positive impact on public health. Working in partnership with local governments we aim to design, develop and create age friendly recreational spaces that incorporate specialised outdoor equipment that enable older people to engage in physical and social activities. Our body of work has been initiated over 10 years ago, by (1) conducting multiple research projects; (2) collecting evidence to support the health benefits of older people using our innovative outdoor physical and social activity program; (3) developing framework to support local governments and communities for better design of inclusive age friendly environments. Our framework incorporates: partnership with local governments, capacity building activities and education to upskill city designer, allied health professionals, and older people (via our volunteer training program). To date our work has led to the development of over 15 age-friendly recreational spaces in Australia.
Planning and Implementation
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What was the challenge you were trying to address?
Most older people are not sufficiently active. Physical activity is one of the key lifestyle factors to improve health and well-being. The design of the built environment and recreational spaces can lead people and older people in particular to engage in planned or incidental physical activity. Our aim is to reduce physical inactivity and improve the health of older people. The main challenge is the lack of suitable spaces for older people to engage in enjoyable safe physical activity in their neighborhoods. The lack of suitable equipment and safe outdoor space for older people to engage in physical activity has been a key driver underpinning our research work and advocacy into age-friendly communities and spaces.
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Who were you trying to impact?
Older people in general, Older people with chronic health conditions or disability
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What sectors were you targeting?
Health
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Who else was involved?
Older People's Association, Health Care
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How did older people participate?
Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages
Lessons learned
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Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
We have collaborated and partnered with over 11 local governments, 3 philanthropic organizations, and also work closely with government bodies (Sport and Recreation Victoria, Municipal Association of Victoria), industry body (Park and Leisure Australia), and Senior organizations.
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What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
The immediate impact was the creation and availability of active space with specialised outdoor exercise equipment for older people to engage in safe physical activity – at present there 16 are now freely available for public. Longer term impact 1 – these age friendly spaces are multigenerational; we often see grandparents and grandchildren co-using them. This fosters intergenerational connection and likely to also reduce stigma. Finally, older people are using the specialized exercise equipment in these recreational parks and hence improve their function to maintain independence and good health.
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What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
Initially, when we started the research few years ago, local governments were reluctant to collaborate and install specialized exercise equipment for older people due to concerns around safety. It seemed that older people were always in the ‘too-hard-to-list’. While many playground/play-spaces being constantly built, the needs of older people are forgotten. It was challenging to dissipate concerns and get engagement from local governments. Once we collected the evidence around safety, enjoyment and health benefits, more and more local governments were keen to engage in partnership. Another important aspect was lack of knowledge of research evidence within industry and the local municipalities staff. This impacted on decisions which often where not based on evidence.
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What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
1) Partnership is the key – working with industry, community and local governments is important to ensure our research work is practical and easy for implementation. We have memorandum of understanding signed off by all our partners to formalise the commitment and engagement. 2) Patience – local governments can make a significant contribution to the safety and health of community members. Effective design of recreational spaces is crucial for accessible and usable spaces. However, internal process and internal decision take time. We have adopted flexible approach when working with such partners so we accommodate the decisions time process. 3) Older people are the centre of what we do – we have older people representative in research meetings and ensure that our volunteers are well supported within their municipality/local governments.
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Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
The Decade of Healthy Ageing has provided a platform and incentive for many local governments to engage in partnership with our organisation, the National Ageing Research Institute (NARI). NARI is a research institute dedicates to improve older people lives through research, advocacy and education. Many local governments in recent years have developed healthy/positive ageing strategy, and engaging in partnership with NARI enabled the installation of specialised age friendly equipment. By creating active recreational spaces for older people, which fits within their healthy/positive ageing strategy, local governments deliver actions to benefits the ageing demographic within their local communities. Our work has been a flagship to bring to the agenda for many organizations the importance of inclusiveness age friendly environment by using evidence based research and innovation. Hence, our activities further contribute to the Decade of Health Ageing mission and actions.