In this bonus episode, we look at running research programmes and explore the question of whether the nature of research can indirectly influence its findings and ask whether we can be both inclusive and accurate when researching people who are socially isolated.

Our guests this week are Sarah Wilkinson from the LGBT Foundation, who supported the Equalities Board to run equalities reviews of Ambition for Ageing, Dr. Sophie Yarker, a research associate at the University of Manchester and Jess Thorley an evaluation officer based at Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· The Big Lottery Fund Equality Information Grantholders guide contains lots of information about the importance of collecting equalities information to help guide design, evaluation and research for community projects.

· The Equality and Human Rights Commissioned published Equality Act 2010: summary guidance on services, public functions and associations, to support the implementation of the Equality Act 2010 and discuss how protection from unlawful discrimination is provided by the Act.

· The LBGT Foundation, Monitoring: Sexual Orientation, Gender & Trans Status highlights the importance of monitoring for patients and service users in relation to equality of access to services. improved services more specific to the needs of LGBT people and how monitoring helps to create a culture of inclusivity and openness with the service provider. It is supported by the LGBT Foundation, Good Practice Guide to Monitoring Sexual Orientation, which provides guidance for services on how to implement monitoring.

· The Ambition for Ageing Evaluation: Why take part? document provided those who took part in activities information about why we collect the information we do and the benefits it will have.

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.

In this episode, we hear life stories from a number of different older people, who share their experiences of growing older as a member of a marginalised community as well as their experiences of and discrimination.

We talk to older people from Pride in Ageing LGBT group, the Greater Manchester BAME Network and the Greater Manchester Older People’s Network about the impact of inequality and importance of diversity.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Pride in Ageing was launched by Sir Ian McKellen in June 2019. It aims to help ensure that Greater Manchester becomes one of the best places for LGBT people to grow older.

· Our partners over in Leeds published an excellent two-part podcast titled Diverse Voices, where they spoke to older people from diverse communities about ageism and discrimination.

· Ambition for Ageing led on a national reportlooking at the importance of social infrastructure for older people from minority communities.

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.

In this first episode of a two-parter looking at how inequality drives social isolation, we take both a practical and academic approach to the subject, featuring interviews with Professor James Nazroo, an expert in ageing and inequalities and we re-join a conversation between Ambition for Ageing lead in Bury, Julie Bentley and Sharon Summers.

Topics covered include how inequalities can have an impact on the opportunities people have to have a say in their local communities, the impact of inequality on people as they age, the stark health outcomes that are connected to these inequalities and how an off-the-cuff suggestion led to a Rainbow Train to celebrate Pride.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Fair Society Healthy Lives is the official title of The Marmot Review. Published in 2010, this was an independent review to propose the most effective evidence-based strategies for reducing health inequalities in England.

· Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On looks at the findings of the Marmot Review and analyses what has changed since its publication.

· Public Health England’s review on the disparities in risks and outcomes of Covid-19.

· The Centre for Ageing Betterhave inequalities as one of their focuses.

· We published a Toolkit for Inclusion in Practice, which provides 24 real case studies illustrating different ways of equalities approach to programme design.

· The National Lottery Community Fund published Engaging Marginalised People Over 50 as their fourth Learning Report, bringing together learning from all 14 partnerships.

· The Ambition for Ageing Equalities Board created a spatial model to support working with marginalised communities.

· The Ambition for Ageing Equalities Board also published a briefing on how to make age-friendly neighbourhoods inclusive.

· The event page for Bury Rainbow Train.

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue.

In the second of two episodes looking deeper at empowering communities to change the places they live, we talk spaces, places and relationships with experts in the field of social capital and social infrastructure.

In this episode, we speak to Dr Sophie Yarker, a research associate at the University of Manchester about the role of social infrastructure and the benefit it brings to building age-friendly communities and researcher Susanne Martikke about how the third sector can use social capital theory to both demonstrate value and better service their communities, as well as the dangers of social capital, as well as its benefits.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Sophie’s report, Social Infrastructure: How shared spaces make communities work argues that to reduce social isolation, we need a diversity of social infrastructure to ensure chance social encounters with a diversity of people.

· During the episode, Sophie mentions Klinenberg’s, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy Of Disaster In Chicago, which pinpoints race, inequality and isolation as causes of death during the 1995 Chicago Heatwave.

· Ray Oldenburg's concept of Third Spaces entered the lexicon through his 1989 book The Great Good Place.

· Camden’s work on Starting conversations with older men on the street in order to increase engagement is mentioned during the episode.

· The Centre for Ageing Better showcased Camden’s work in their blog How services can reach older men.

· Susanne’s overview of Social Capital gives an excellent introduction to the concept for VCSE organisations.

· The first of three researchers mentioned by Susanne, Putman’s Bowling Alone introduction to the concept of social capital.

· Coleman’s theory of a rational choice approach to social theory is the second of three researchers mentioned by Susanne

· Bourdieu arguments that social exchanges are not purely self-interested is the third research referenced by Susanne

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.

In the first of two episodes looking deeper at empowering communities to change the places they live, the Ambition for Ageing team catch up with community workers in local neighbourhoods to discuss what already needs to exist in a place to begin with, what support to build capacity looks like, how inequalities existing in place can impact on building community capacity and more.

We’re joined by Yasmin Holgeth and Julie Bentley, both of whom worked with their local communities as part of Ambition for Ageing to identify, develop, fund and run a huge number of projects, all in the name of reducing social isolation and increasing age-friendliness.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Looking Back Whilst Moving Forward: Ambition for Ageing’s final report and what implications the findings of the programme have for future commissioning

· Julie and Sharon’s conversation about tight knit communities being invisibly socially isolated is further explored in our briefing, What works in tackling social isolation of older people in Bangladeshi Communities, which highlights the importance of working in a culturally sensitive ways with a community’s values to ensure you reach those at higher risk of social isolation within that community.

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.

Loneliness is a hot topic at the moment, especially in the context of COVID. But does focusing so much on loneliness as a problem of older age mean that we miss loneliness throughout the life course, perpetuate stereotypes of older people and drive funding and support away from other issues older people are facing? We discuss this and the many other myths around loneliness with Professor Christina Victor, the professor and gerontology and public health at Brunel University.

Later on in the episode, we are also joined by Richard Dowsett from the National Lottery Community Fund, where we’ll discuss why they decided to make a £84 million investment to improve the lives of people aged over 50 by addressing both social isolation and loneliness within local communities.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Loneliness is not just for Christmas – but by the flurry of charity messages you’d think otherwise, an article written by Christina in 2017.

· During the episode, Christina references champion swimmer, 81-year-old Baz Owen.

· A summary of Joseph Sheldon CBE and his 1948 Wolverhampton survey, as referenced by Christina in the episode.

· Information about the National Lottery Community Fund’s Ageing Better Programme

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.

There’s been a shift in recent years towards looking at social isolation and loneliness as an area of policy. We talk to our guests Paul McGarry and Kate Jopling about the move from deficit-based models where we link ageing purely to health and social care to looking at assets and supporting older people to continue being active within their communities.

Topics covered include the impact of cuts and population changes on how we age, why the difference between loneliness and social isolation is important and how understanding the difference between the two can shape how we support people.

This episode also features short discussions with Ageing Better partners Vic Stirling from Sheffield, Stephen Raybold from Birmingham and Corinna Hyman from Camden.

A transcript of this podcast is available at www.ambitionforageing.org.uk/podcast

----------------

Further reading

----------------

· Paul McGarry is the Head of the Greater Manchester Ageing Hub, you can read more about their role and activities on the GMCA Website and follow Paul on twitter at AgeFriendlyMCR.

· You can follow Kate Jopling on twitter.

· Age Better in Sheffield are continuing to work to ensure that older people in Sheffield feel connected with communities.

· Ageing Better in Birminghamis a programme that aims to reduce loneliness and social isolation among people over 50 across the city.

· Ageing Better in Camden is a partnership of older people and Camden organisations, working together to tackle social isolation and loneliness.

--------------------

Ambition for Ageing is a Greater Manchester-wide cross-sector partnership aimed at creating more age-friendly places and empowering people to live fulfilling lives as they age. Ambition for Ageing is part of Ageing Better, a program set up by the National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.  Ageing Better aims to develop creative ways for older people to be actively involved in their local communities, helping to combat social isolation and loneliness. Ambition for Ageing is led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the voluntary community and social enterprise sector support and development organisation covering the Greater Manchester city region. The theme tune for this podcast is Air by Iliya Troyanov, and any indents this season are taken from his track Tide. Both are used under a creative commons license from his album Fugue. Thank you for listening to this podcast. For more information about Ambition for Ageing and the work we do, visit ambitionforageing.org.uk.