Towards Ageing-in-place: Policy and Practice Options

This event provides for dissemination and dialogue on the findings of ODESSA, (Optimising care delivery models to support ageing-in-place), a three-year, €1million venture which has worked with older people to find new and innovative ways to achieve ageing-in-place. It will situate the dissemination of ODESSA’s findings within a context of established connections to multiple policy and practice networks and think tanks in the UK. A trans-disciplinary study, ODESSA provides an evidence base for the physical design and social dimensions of an ageing-in-place framework, highlighting the importance of inclusive design and community connectivity to successful ageing-in-place outcomes. Action towards achieving these outcomes over time will require, alongside a focus on areas of built environment design, attention to community connectivity and, associated areas of high policy priority: loneliness, social isolation or exclusion. This symposium brings evidence from ODESSA together with innovative practice examples from elsewhere on approaches to improving inclusivity and accessibility in the built environment, and tackling loneliness and social isolation through community connectivity, with the aim of further developing together our strategic thinking on ageing-in-place as a practical policy goal.