OUTRIGHT WINNERS Community Services Award
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Excellence in Business Awards 2018 Dublin City Council - Community Community Services Award
With an ageing population, the Age Friendly Ireland initiative is all about actively promoting partnerships and collaborations with city and county-based alliances, involving senior decision-makers from public, commercial and not-for-profit organisations. In Dublin City Council, an Older Person’s Council provides a citizen or service user perspective in monitoring the implementation of the strategies set out in the Age Friendly City Strategy. The Older Person’s Councils are, over time, intended to be representative of the diversity of the older population in the city, linked to local older people’s groups and supportive of the participation of the most marginalised in society. The Dublin City Council Older Person’s Council is composed of representatives from organisations throughout Dublin City. Members include Active Retirement Groups, Senior Citizen groups, Men’s Sheds, Glór, and U3A (University of the Third Age) – lifelong learning groups. The council meets once every six weeks with the support of Dublin City Council. The aim of the council is to represent the collective view of Dublin’s older people and to influence and inform policy and planning citywide. Alongside Dublin City Council and Dublin Age Friendly Alliance, the council are working towards improving the lives of older people in Dublin City in a number of ways: • • • • •
By influencing decision makers and service providers By being a voice for older people By having an input to decisions being made about older people By creating citywide links and networks for older people By providing education, awareness, and information to older people
The National Positive Ageing Strategy includes in its statement that in establishing an Older Person’s Council, local authorities should
ensure that their composition is representative of the diversity of the older population at local level; that the councils are linked with local groups or older people; and that the participation of the most vulnerable is supported. Having representatives for people with dementia on the Older Person’s Council is a key principle of the National Dementia Strategy as it sees these councils as a significant voice for older people which enables people with dementia to live well as valued citizens. Learning from each other’s experience, Dublin City Council aim to build a strong and unified Older Person’s Council which will be a truly representative voice for older people in Dublin. The ambition of the Older Person’s Council is to work creatively with the Age Friendly Programme and the Age Friendly Alliances on both sides of Dublin City.
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