An age-friendly community is where older people have a stronger voice in deciding what social and environmental aspects of their area need to be more aligned with the needs of older people. Some of the thousands of age-friendly communities initiatives that are in place include:

• The City of Boroondara (Victoria) have been creating intergenerational connections by connection local families with older people through a meal sharing program “The Casserole Club”.
• The New York City council installed thousands of city benches near pedestrian lights and also lengthened the time of the pedestrian light as part of their City Benches program.
• In Porta Portugal, the council co-hosted art and cultural exhibits to tell the life stories of older people in the community.
• In South Delhi India, a program was created to increase safety on the streets. Older people were introduced to the patrol police in their area – met them personally and exchanged contact details.

As part of our engagement with the community, in mid 2020 we released a comprehensive Age-friendly Knox survey which was sent to over 3000 older Knox residents via mail and made available online to the rest of the community more broadly. The purpose of this survey was to find out how healthy and active our older community is, and, what they think Council and the community should prioritise to create an age friendly community.

A summary of the survey results can be found here.