The IncludeAge Project - Inclusion of diverse older people in community and public places and virtual spaces

IncludeAge Standard Newsletter:
Issue 10 - February 2025

Welcome to our monthly IncludeAge Newsletter!

News Updates & Celebrations

New Journal Article Published

Our new article on using collaborative auto/biographical poetry to foster transdisciplinarity and build inclusion is now published and available to read here

You can also see Richard read the "I Come From..." poem on our YouTube channel here. 

Community Advisory Groups Update

Our Community Advisory Groups are preparing to meet in advance of our upcoming Project Steering Group in February. The CAGs will be looking toward the final year of our project and how a range of workshops and groups will be run.

We are looking to recruit more members for our GOLD CAG for mid-older people who are LGBT+. If you are interested in volunteering for one of these groups you can reply to this email.

Life Course Interview Update

We have completed almost 120 Life Course Interviews with mid-older aged people who have a Learning Disability (46 interviews) or who are LGBT+ (72 interviews) across the project, and we are busy organising different ways to analyse all of the data we generated. 

Place Study Update

We have now sent out over 40 tablets for the 2nd phase of our project – the Place Study.

Data is now coming in from mid-older people with Learning Disabilities and mid-older people who are LGBT+ who are based in Scotland, England and Wales.

So far, 21 participants who have Learning Disabilities have submitted 124 reports, and 18 participants who are LGBT+ have submitted 142 submissions.

We are expecting these numbers to continue to grow as people who haven’t begun submitting data get started. 

Participants who have finished the Place Study are now co-creating their personal Story Maps with our researchers.

In the Story Maps we use the geographical or online locations, photos, audio-clips and written responses that participants sent to us through the Place Study tablets and through interviews, to create digital Story Maps of their experiences in these places.   

Organisational Interviews Update

Our 3rd data generation phase is Organisational Interviews. We have now completed 32 interviews with a range of organisations across Scotland, England and Wales. These include 9 with organisations that focus on people with learning disabilities, 3 LGBT+ organisations, 2 organisations that work with both participant groups, 3 organisations that focus on mid-older people and 15 general community organisations.

We are still actively recruiting for organisational interviews, so if your organisation or someone you know might be interested you can let us know by replying to this email 😊 

Outreach

New Impact Workshops

The ESRC Impact Accelerator Accounts impact workshops run by Richard with trainee healthcare practitioners and trainee teachers / educational practitioners are scheduled for 19th-20th March and 7th April. These have been co-produced and will be co-facilitated with our LGBT+ co-researchers.

The aim of these workshops is to help trainees to communicate sensitively with LGBTQ+ people of different age groups in their environments, and to identify potential resources that would help them and their professional sectors become more age-friendly to LGBTQ+ people.

LGBT+ history Month at Hertfordshire

As part of LGBT+ History Month at the University of Hertfordshire, Richard is collaborating with the LGBTQ+ Staff Network, the LGBT+ Student Society, the Ally Network, and the EDI Office, to have a roundtable discussion on including LGBTQ+ histories into allyship training, drawing on insights from the IncludeAge life course interviews.

The University is currently revisiting its Allyship training programme, and the EDI Office is keen to work with Richard to shape its policy in ways that enable the most inclusive kind of allyship for LGBT+ people at the University. This discussion is scheduled for 27th February at the University of Hertfordshire.

New Resources

Keep in Touch!

Remember you can also see what is on our YouTube channel HERE

And you can always catch up with us too, on our website HERE

Our Project Outputs

We are sharing project outputs over the course of the project on our Project Outputs page. New resources will be shared in our newsletter each month. 

Recent Blog Posts