5 December 2022
The Peoplehood partnership is headed by Blackwood Housing and Care and includes partners from across the public, private, and third sectors. It scooped the Best Partnership Award at the 2022 Scottish Housing Awards of the Chartered Institute of Housing, hosted at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow on 27 October.
CenSE and Blackwood were the initiating partners of Peoplehood in 2019. CenSE has subsequently been leading the co-design work for the partnership, with elderly people and local communities, over the last three years. CenSE’s involvement in Peoplehood has been led by Professor Stephen Osborne, Director of CenSE, and supported by CenSE members Joanne Macfarlane and Katharine Aulton.
Peoplehood has total project funding of £7.4 million across the partnership and is part of the UK Government’s Healthy Ageing Programme to promote innovative approaches to services for elderly people. It was established to encourage and support elderly people ‘to remain active, productive, independent and socially connected across generations for as long as possible’. It has a special focus on the potential of digital and AI-supported services to enhance the lives of elderly people in their communities. The project is working in three trailblazer localities: Charleston (Dundee), Cardonald (Glasgow) and Buckie (Moray).
Peoplehood is committed to addressing five key challenges for older people:
- Designing age-friendly homes that are accessible, affordable, beautiful, and connected.
- Sustaining physical activities by providing local people with a range of activities and equipment, such electric bikes stations.
- Managing common complaints of ageing, by evolving services to help elderly people to age well, and to feel safe and secure in their neighbourhoods.
- Supporting social connections and in particular by helping elderly people to become confident online - making the most of new and exciting technology to help people to connect in a safe and secure way.
- Creating healthy and active places will focus on making the neighbourhoods welcoming, accessible and beautiful places to live.
More information on Peoplehood can be found at the project website.
CenSE has now also received additional knowledge exchange funding for this project from the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. This will support a workshop on the lessons from Peoplehood for co-design with vulnerable adults, to be held in Spring 2023. It will also be linked to the production of a professionally produced podcast and practice guide for social and health care professionals and policymakers.