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Sixty-five-year-old Frances Cramp- in is hoping to get a GCSE in citizenship next year – just months after feeling ‘pretty lost and desolate' when she lost her husband. East ender Frances is one of the success stories emerging from the LinkAge Plus programme, currently being piloted by eight English councils. The scheme is an attempt to reach out to isolated older people and meet their holistic needs – whether resulting from health or care problems, or loneliness. It has been dubbed by the sponsoring Department of Work and Pensions – which has sunk £10m into the pilots – as ‘a Sure Start for older people'. Frances attends the Sundial Centre in east London – one of five LinkAge Plus centres set up by Tower Hamlets LBC – and will receive her GCSE for participating in a Life Skills programme with youngsters from a local secondary school. Teaming up with local schools is just one of the ways LinkAge Plus is making older people feel part of their communities, says local co-ordinator, Surjit Power. She explains: ‘It's all about meeting the rounded needs of over-50s who often won't automatically turn up on the council's doorstep, and bring them into the fold, rather than leave them isolated at home, or see them passed from pillar to post. ‘We don't sit back and wait for people to approach us. We have an outreach worker who will knock on people's doors on local estates – or even hand out leaflets at bus stops and GP centres. ‘Once people say they're happy to be involved, we assess their needs and then make sure they get the right package of support.' She continues: ‘It is certainly proving to be successful. Since we started LinkAge Plus, I estimate we're dealing with an extra 40 to 50 people a month – on top of the 400 or so people who regularly attend the centre. ‘The secret of our success is partnership working – whether it's with community groups, or other local services run by the council, health service or voluntary sector.' Someone who has been pulling together these strings at a borough-wide level is Tower Hamlets director of adults' health and wellbeing, John Goldup, who agrees that partnership working is a major key to the scheme's success. He says: ‘This kind of partnership isn't built overnight, and it isn't just based on being nice to each other. ‘It's built on transparency, straight talking, and a genuinely-shared commitment to providing fantastic services for and with the people who need them most. ‘The other element which has really generated energy around LinkAge Plus is the direct involvement of older people themselves – not just as service-users, but as service providers, service navigators, and service champions. ‘We've managed to break down a lot of the barriers between professionals and local communities.' Another pilot area where the programme is making a difference is largely-rural Devon – where the county council faces very different challenges from city authorities – with 300,000 over-50s spread across some 2,500 square miles. As Devon CC's Sue Younger-Ross explains: ‘The geography of the area means many residents have substantial barriers to accessing everyday services. It follows that any programme aiming to help people get the most out of life must adopt an approach tailored to the scale and diversity of the population. ‘We have addressed this by establishing three workstreams, identified during work on the Local Area Agreement, whose common theme could be said to be putting "older people in the driving seat" – of their own lives, the services they need for independence, and of a strategy for Devon's ageing population.' Two of the workstreams are a senior council with roots in 28 coastal and rural market towns and Exeter – aimed at improving engagement with older people – and a project looking at broad outreach from an established customer service centre. The third workstream is a mentoring programme which works with people experiencing social exclusion following some downturn in their lives – many suffering from problems such as depression, anxiety or other mental, neurological or physical illnesses. Ms Younger-Ross sums up: ‘If successful, mentoring will help redesign local services to include those whose needs are sometimes overlooked at present, utilising their insights and creativity to drive change. ‘Also, as the senior council finds its voice, increasingly-authentic engagement with local older people will enable it and its partners to develop a strategy directly informed by their priorities – a winning result for both.' weam society, as Lee Lixenberg explains

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Helping hand is a plus

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