Striving to create age-friendly environments
The city of Melville in Western Australia recently presented at the International Federation on Ageing 10th Global Conference in Melbourne about its partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and state government to implement the Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) program.
The presentation described the value of applying the WHO and AFC approach to strategic planning processes when preparing for an ageing population and outlined the tools used in the base line research.
The presentation acknowledged the work that everyone in the aged care sector, as well as all tiers of government, is already doing to prepare for an ageing population.
The main aim is to capture the things that are being done within an internationally recognized framework that provide a co-ordinated way to share experiences using a common language.
Part of the background was an outline of a framework to visually represent the way Melville is working towards an age-friendly city, including how to measure age-friendliness.
As a result of the AFC strategy, Melville works closely with agencies other than local government to progress towards an age-friendly city.
Another interesting insight was the worth of age-friendliness to the whole community. While one of the drivers is the ageing population, if age-friendly communities are created, they are age-friendly for everyone as well as encompassing many benefits for improving accessibility as well.
Since July 2010, the city of Melville is one of nine cities throughout the world to be a member of the World Health Organization Global Network of Age Friendly Cities network. This membership will provide a broader variety of tools and information to share with other local governments and agencies in the aged care sector, throughout Western Australia.
For more information on the city of Melville’s involvement with WHO and our Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) program, visit http://www.melvillecity.com.au
