Workshop gives older people the skills to tackle loneliness

Future Years, the Yorkshire and Humber Forum on Ageing, will host the event, which is aimed at people who are interested in ending loneliness and reducing social isolation for older people in the region.

The Forum’s chairman Coun Shelagh Marshall, who also heads Age Action Alliance’s national working group on Isolation and Loneliness, said the workshop came at time when “massive changes” were taking place in health and social care services.

She said: “Future years was established in 2005 for the purpose of engaging with older people in the region, seeking their views on important issues which affect their lives and taking those views directly to Government Ministers. A secondary aim, but no less important, is to ensure that older people are well informed so that they can contribute their views when services affecting older people are being developed or reviewed.

“The aims of the workshop are to gain an understanding of the health and well-being structures, in health and social care services, raising greater awareness of the loneliness and enabling those who attend to bring about change and consider how your local authority and health services engage with older people.”

Coun Marshall will speak at the event, held at The Circle on Rockingham Lane in Sheffield on Friday March 13, alongside George Wood of York Older People’s Assembly, and a spokesperson from Sheffield’s Ageing Better Programme, which received £6m in Lottery funding last year for projects on loneliness.

Admission to the workshop is free and includes lunch. Places are limited and can be booked by calling 01274 725451 or 0776 9933010.