Services Services for Older People Senior Support Services
| Senior Support Services |
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Our Senior Support services promote healthy ageing through community based support, by providing information and advice in relation to health, welfare and housing issues and the provision of health promoting activities. Our services for older people include Community Catering, our meals service, Sonas Day Centre in Mervue and our community development projects in the Renmore and Headford road areas of the city. Our services are provided by paid staff and volunteers and they are developed in consultation with older people. Volunteers working with older people provide a range of activities such as art, music, yoga and craft programmes in addition they deliver meals in the community and are involved in our fundraising events.
We recognise the importance of the wider community as a sustainable resource to older people and in recognition of this have developed a number of interagency and intergenerational projects. Local schools are involved with our services through the transition year programme and these intergenerational activities are proved positive for both older people and the teenagers involved. We have student projects running which aim to improve quality of life issues for older people through researching occupational therapy interventions, technology as a strategy for combating social isolation and social marketing as a method of maximizing service use. Students are getting real world experience and learning in the community and these projects are actively supported by the academic institutions.
In May 2010 we organised a conference with the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology based in NUI Galway. The conference theme was Life Enhancement for Older People: Translating Research into Practice. The conference was planned and attended by older people, the chair was a member of a local active retired group and a number of presentations were made by older people.
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