Office Address:

Partnership with Older People
Endeavour House
Russell Road
Ipswich
Suffolk IP1 2BX

Contact details for POPS

Partnership with Older People is a new network in Suffolk with older people at its heart.

Older people have an important part to play in our community. People are living longer and expect to have a good quality of life throughout their lives and to go on making a contribution.

There are many different organisations and community groups in Suffolk working to contribute to the well being of older people.

Partnership with Older People brings together older people and the County Council, the health service, local councils, voluntary and community groups. The aim is to develop, run or support practical programmes that will raise the profile of older people and increase their quality of life.

How did it come about?

Suffolk County Council, together with Age Concern, started to consult with a wide range of people, particularly older people themselves. The consultation showed that there was strong support for the idea of a partnership and for people to work together to improve services. This led to the creation of Partnership with Older People (POP).

What will it do?

The themes that came out of the consultation that people wanted POP to work on were:

• Better information that is easy to get at
• Developing networks that will put people in touch with one another
• Being able to get to all the things that we need, or that make life rich and interesting – or those things being able to get to you!
• Practical ways to help people go on living at home that are outside of the things that social care services provide(such as getting the grass cut, and minor repairs)
• Helping more people to access the financial support to which they are entitled (such as Council Tax Benefit and Pension Credit
• Getting organisations to sign up to a Charter that says what older people expect and ways that they will improve the quality of life of older people

These are the things that POP will concentrate on in the first year.

How will it work?

POP is in an early stage of development and we are currently building up membership so that we can keep people informed of progress. Each member will be sent a quarterly newsletter full of interesting information and details about forthcoming events and activities taking place, the first edition being available from the end of September 2004.

POP will involve older people in every aspect of the partnership and its work. Three forums will be set up initially in the near future to look at ways of addressing local concerns and issues and theme groups will be formed to take forward a whole number of other initiatives such as the development of a POP Website, a Charter for Older People and Information Roadshows.

Jill Stewart has been recruited as project developer to help make things happen.This post will help to co-ordinate existing networks and assist with some of the practical programmes.