International Longevity Centre Global Alliance - Designing the Future of Ageing

5th August 2021

The Hunter Ageing Alliance and the City of Newcastle came together in August 2021 to facilitate a community engagement workshop on the topic of developing an Age Friendly City.

About the Hunter Ageing Alliance (HAA)

Age-friendly communities mean that planning takes the needs of older people into account, recognising that older people have the same desire to remain physically, intellectually, and socially active as younger people. This requires environmental adaptation, appropriate housing at all levels of affordability, easy access to information about services and facilities for older people, protection from elder abuse, health care services appropriate to the needs of older people and support for socially isolated people to ensure their physical and psychological well-being.

The HAA’s goal is to register Newcastle and Lake Macquarie within the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. To this end, members of the HAA will work with all levels of government, statutory authorities, and NGOs on:

• The environment – including public spaces, transport, and access for people with disabilities
• Appropriate housing – Including social housing, communal housing, and emergency housing
• Elder abuse – awareness, assessment, and prevention
• Health services – particularly the assessment and management of dementia and chronic diseases
• Social isolation – securely identify isolated older people and provide for their physical and psychological well-being
• Ageing and aged care services information – ensuring accessibility
• End-of-life legal planning and health care – ensuring availability to all

These programs will help transform Newcastle and Lake Macquarie into communities which older people would be attracted to live or visit as tourists. Creating significant economic and social opportunities for the Hunter, as well as benefiting our older population.

You can find out more information on HAA here.

Newcastle as an Age Friendly City

The Age Friendly City workshop will now inform the City of Newcastle’s social strategy, the Local Social. The Local Social strategy will address barriers to inclusion and equal opportunity, encourage community participation, and strengthen community wellbeing. It will set Newcastle’s aspirations for a socially just and inclusive city and will guide Newcastle’s collaborations for social change over the next decade. This period also coincides with the World Health Organisation Decade of Healthy Ageing.

You can find more information on the Local Social here.

Professor Julie Byles BMed PhD FAAHMS 

Director | Centre for Women’s Health Research

Global Innovation Chair in Responsive Transitions in Health and Ageing

School of Medicine and Public Health

The University of Newcastle

Email: julie.byles@newcastle.edu.au