Age UK is a fantastic charity dedicated to helping older people live full and meaningful lives and ensuring that individuals in an ageing population do not feel isolated. Their latest strapline - “Let’s change how we age!” - encompasses an approach that discards assumptions and preconceptions about older people and supports individuals to achieve the goals they have set themselves.
There can hardly be a person in the country - certainly not here at Innate Needs - that hasn’t had a friend or relative benefit from the incredible services and kindnesses provided by the Age UK staff and volunteers at their shops and events. So what follows is not meant in the spirit of criticism, but rather in the spirit of mutual improvement. How can we (software developers) help charities’ online provision be more accessible to the end user?
Age UK's online event listings can be slightly opaque. Finding them involves locating your local Age UK charity’s website, then navigating through their website to find the social activity pages. The programmes and event posters may be hosted as PDFs that need to be downloaded or printed. And they are frequently buried deep down and sometimes require checking each PDF of each event.
In the early stages of researching online provision of help and support services, one member of our team observed: “My Mum's fairly internet savvy but I think she'd get confused trying to work out simply where and when these age UK events are happening - even though there appear to be loads of them.”
This is where a tool like the Innate Needs map comes into its own. Our aim is to list in a single place all the help and support that is available to people who need it. So naturally that includes a filter that shows meet ups available to older people who may be feeling isolated. We’ve made a start populating the Social Interaction filter by listing hundreds of older person meet-ups in major urban centres up and down the country. (And we know there are hundreds more that we desperately want to get onto our map!)
Check out this map which is pre-filtered to social meet ups for older people - you’ll quickly see how easy it is to find places nearby that are offering social interaction.
Now, imagine if we could list every event in the whole country? There’s no reason why not! No limiting factor in the software. We just need to get the event organisers on board and into the habit of listing their events.
If you run an event that helps prevent older people from feeling isolated and inactive and you can’t see it on our map, head over to the List Your Help page and click ‘Get Started’ to register your interest in being listed in the Innate Needs map - we’ll quickly check that you’re genuine and invite successful applicants to access an area of the website where you can add and update your own listings.
