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

IncludeAge Standard Newsletter:
Issue 11 - March 2025

Welcome to our monthly IncludeAge Newsletter!

News Updates & Celebrations

Exciting News - Our Project has been Extended! 

We are delighted to share the news that we have been awarded a 6 month no-cost extension by our funding body the ESRC. This means that we have more time to generate, analyse and share our project findings far and wide. 

Our new project end date will be July 2026.

We had our 8th IncludeAge Steering Group meeting

We held our 8th Steering Group meeting last week, this time in Nottingham and online. The meeting was extremely well attended and it was wonderful to hear updates from across the whole project.

The Discovery group spoke about their perceptions of inclusion, and the importance of using different ways of communication such as podcasts, photos, drawings as well as Easy Read and Talking Mats.  They also spoke about how important being respected is to feeling included.

The GOLD group reported a positive feeling about being part of the project, particularly in terms of being part of co-analysis.  Some of the challenges of building relationships in participatory research were also discussed.

Life Course Interview Update

We have completed over 120 Life Course Interviews with mid-older aged people who have a Learning Disability or who are LGBT+  across the whole project. 46 of these interviews were done by co-researchers, and so far 67 have been coded as part of analysis. 

This is especially exciting because it means we are beginning to develop some real insights that we are looking forward to being able to share soon!!

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.

Almost 300 surveys have been submitted so far, from a total of 41 participants.

We have begun co-creating Story Maps with participants who have finished sending in surveys, and will start creating Social Network Maps in the next couple of months. 

Organisational Interviews Update

Our 3rd data generation phase is Organisational Interviews.

We have now completed 44 interviews with 35 organisations across Scotland, England and Wales.

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 😊 

Moving Forward: Work Packages 3 and 4

As we move into Work Packages 3 and 4, we have now completed two Deliberative Dialogue Workshops, and have another two planned for April.

These workshops have been designed to include practitioner and professional stakeholders, to look at questions around improving inclusion with a focus on what needs to happen, when and where it needs to happen, how and by whom.

We now have some early reflections from our Deliberative Dialogue Workshops. The following topics were raised and discussed in terms of their link with inclusion: Access and Freedom; Belonging and acceptance; Structural and Systemic; Emotional and Social Wellbeing.

Following on from this, the discussions led on to the complexities of inclusion, which included: Inclusion vs Exclusion Conundrum; Inclusion and Conformity Tensions; Actively Challenging Stereotypes and Norms; Shift from Deficit to Asset-Based Thinking; Balancing Different Meanings of Inclusion.

Further insights will be shared in detail following the next two workshops. 

Outreach

Judith Met with Other Inclusive Ageing Project Leads

Judith met with other project leads from the ESRC Inclusive Ageing Funding Call (the call that funds IncludeAge) and gave a presentation on the project so far.

This was received very well and Judith had the opportunity to catch up with other project leads doing similar research. 

New Resources

International Conference on Educational and Life Transitions 2025

The International Conference on Educational and Life Transitions conference 2025 has just announced that they are now open for registration.

It is very likely that IncludeAge will be presenting at this conference, which will take place fully online, making it much more accessible internationally. 

Registration is free, click HERE to find out more!

Free Research Webinar Link

Sage recently hosted a webinar titled “Research with Historically Marginalized Communities “.

The recording of this session is now freely available 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