Author: Ann Marie Crosse

The Voice of Older People Donegal is about older people having their say. The aim of this paper is to describe how the project developed and to set out some of the lessons learned in the process.

The Project

The Voice of Older People Donegal project began as a pilot programme funded by the Health Promotion Department of the North Western Health Board and the Department of Health under the new community health initiaves programme. The aim of the pilot was to develop the capacity of older people to articulate their needs and concerns and to develop methods of moving individual issues into a collective agenda and a collective voice. The principles of community development were core to this process - active participation in identifying issues, implementing responses and advocating for change.

In the initial stage of this process, it was essential to ascertain the level of activity as well as the various organisations working with or with a remit to work with older people. To this end a mapping process was undertaken. This involved mapping at local, county, regional, national and European level. Contacts were developed and a series of local workshops were undertaken. Over three thousand older people and agencies participated in this process. As the process was left open-ended and dynamic information flowed in and out of the discussions, new issues emerged, more isolated and hard to reach older people joined in and added a new dimension. Overall it engendered the belief that issues important to people were heard. As one woman said, 'I heard that you can say something and be listened to here'.

The Local Networks

Following this information-gathering stage five networks were set up across Donegal:

• The Inishowen Network;
• The North West Network;
• The North Network;
• The East Network; and
• The South Network.

The networks initially met once every four to five weeks. They discussed issues that were important to them and took action to move these issues forward. They have been very successful in linking up with local decision makers.

Moving Towards Collective Identity - The County Forum

Once the networks were established we felt that it was important to cement a collective identity - to move from the local to the county level. To do this we set up a county representative group made up of two people from each of the five network areas. This has worked well - it has created a two-way flow of information, from the county level to the local and from the local to the county.

The County Forum meets once a month to examine key issues emerging from the local level. It has found that there are common issues across the county. Transport, or the lack of it, is one such major issue. To address it the Forum invited CIE, the Rural Bus Community Initiatives and the private bus companies to a Forum meeting. This resulted in the setting up of two local transport community initiatives with the local partnerships.
The County Forum identified four related areas based on local and collective information for which it believed actions would be important:

• Information and networking
• Advocacy
• Developing new projects; and
• Influencing decision makers.

A range of initiatives has emerged as a result.

Information and Networking

One of the biggest issues identified at the early stage of the project was that people felt that they had very little or no quality information about services for older people at the local or national level, or what the CDBs offered, or how to get involved.

To address this at the county level we worked with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Older People's Services, Comhairle, the Vocational Education Committee (VEC), the Gardai and the CDB, whose Equality Officer was involved in the project from the beginning. We also ran sessions on citizen involvement and linked in the Irish Senior Citizen's Parliament, Age Action, Age and Opportunity, among others.

We ran information sessions in rural, isolated areas and areas of gathering (GPs surgeries and marts) - targeting vulnerable and isolated older people- particularly older men.
We have also developed several information outputs, which not only serve to provide information but also afford a collective identity and purpose.

• A monthly newsletter;
• A literary magazine called The Silver Pen;
• A project leaflet, The Voices of Older People at Local Level,
• Community arts programme - using this a platform to vocalise issues and disseminate information- e.g. a play on ageism called Age Rage and another on a returned emigrants story.

Advocacy

Early on in the development of the project, realising the importance of advocacy, we set out an Advocacy Action Plan. This involved various levels of advocacy from self-advocacy to social change advocacy. It covers four areas: health; ageism; transport; and information. As this work needed a core driver we sought and have received funding for a part time advocacy worker.

Developing New Projects

All new projects have been designed based on locally identified need. Calling them 'new' we felt was important as many of the projects did not exist before, and it was the first time older people themselves were designing the projects.

The following are examples:

• As the fear of crime and issues of safety were felt important by older people we developed partnerships with the Gardai and developed an information leaflet on security issues and 'around the house' personal security systems.
• As senior link line project based on a telephone service which contacts isolated and/or vulnerable older people at home on a daily or weekly basis to check if they are feeling alright and acting as a signpost for information etc. Should they be unwell the system alerts a neighbour who calls with the person. We felt that such a service would be beneficial to older people in Donegal, particularly those living in isolated rural areas. We have now employed a co-ordinator and this service will commence in the autumn and it is planned to phase the project from Inishowen to cover all Donegal.
• A series of 'Celebration Days' and Active Citizenship days were run in the county - over 60 days with five thousand attending. Funding was accessed from the HSE, the VEC, the local partnerships and local community groups. The aim of these days was to explore issues in which older people were interested and to develop from these a positive sense of the ageing process. The days are run by older people themselves who have been trained as peer educators and it is planned to extend the training in 2006 to include peer educators from various health settings - day centres, hospitals, community hospitals and community psychiatry. A five-day course is being developed as well as a mentoring programme -- t is planned to run another forty days in 2006.

Influencing Decision Makers

Building on the initial mapping process an older person was employed to develop a second level mapping. This consisted of collating data on community and voluntary groups and other organisations - identifying level of activity, type of activity, attendees, gender breakdown gaps and supports needed. With this knowledge we applied for and are now recruiting a Positive Ageing worker to meet identified needs and gaps.

In terms of dialogue with decision makers, we found that the development of a collective strategic agenda rather than ad hoc individualised needs-led plan was extremely beneficial - even at a local network level. This agenda became a powerful tool. We decided therefore to invite the decision makers to join the County Forum. This was timely as early on it was important for older people to have time to build their own capacity to decide what the issues were without service providers present. The County Forum now comprises ten older people and eight service sector providers. We feel it is important to ensure that older people are in the majority in the Forum.

Conclusions

We have found that working towards social inclusion of older people at local level is a long-term process. The work we have done so far has taken three years.

We have found that if older people are to have a sense of ownership of activities and initiatives they have to be involved at the local level, from the bottom up.

We have found that building confidence and capacity is one of the key parts of the process. Representation from the local to the county level is important. It is also important to realise that full representation may never be achieved but relevant information should nevertheless be available wherever people are - the community, hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions - so that they everyone has a chance to have his or her voice heard. It is important to ensure that all older people have an independent voice - the voice of older people cannot be owned by any organisation.

We have also found that the context in which we live and work is ever changing and that this is - and should be - reflected in the process.
It is important that the process be dynamic and flexible: people come into the process, the process and the outputs change; you have to be prepared to change your action plan and move forward.

We found that partnership working, collaboration and pooling of resources is key to success. It is essential in helping to join fragmented service provision together. We forged partnerships with the community and voluntary sector as well as Community Development and Family Resource centres, partnerships and the State sector. A large number of organisations representing older people were enormously helpful to our project including the Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament, Age and Opportunity, Age Action and The European People's Platform as well as the HSE North West Region.
As the communication channels open up we believe that older people in Donegal now have the skills and the voice to say, 'We are here, these are the issues and this is what we want, we are ready to negotiate.' We have come out of the shadows into the light.'