Lorraine George explores the journey from developing intergenerational practice and embedding quality standards to becoming a recognised intergenerational practitioner within your field through an exciting new development.
2. Focus & Aims
• Principles underpinning intergenerational work
• The context can it be used in
• The benefits to participants & wider community
• The intergenerational CPD pathway for practitioners
• Training opportunities to develop intergenerational
best practice
3. What is
intergenerational
practice ?
‘Intergenerational practice
aims to bring people
together in purposeful,
mutually beneficial activities
which promote greater
understanding and respect
between generations and
contributes to building more
cohesive communities.’
Beth Johnson Foundation
4. An intergenerational
approach
• Brings people together in purposeful
mutually beneficial ways
• Challenges ageism & stereotypes
• Supports children & young people to
understand and value diversity &
difference
• Promotes greater understanding &
respect between generations
• Asset based - builds on positive
resources that generations have to
offer each other & those around
them
5. Principles of
intergenerational practice
Mutual & reciprocal benefit
Equal participation & asset based
Well planned & culturally grounded
Strengthens community bonds
Promotes active citizenship
Challenges Ageism
Cross disciplinary
6. Direct benefits:
Older adults: Increased socialisation & engagement, greater sense of well-being,
validation & love, increase in physical activity, reduced loneliness & isolation
Children & Young People: Improved social skills, language & communication, feeling
increased well-being & development of empathy benefits wider learning, mentoring
Workplace: Improves staff retention & morale, attracts new staff, better working
environment
Community: Increased footfall into residential care, transparency & improvement of
practice, increase in generations meeting & learning from each other, challenging
ageism & stereotypes
8. Leads
to:
Siloed work priorities
Repetition of similar projects
Lack of funds & lack of directed money
Lone voice
Less research & evidence
Little joined up knowledge of benefits
Reduced impact & change
10. 1: Change
the narrative
MG or IG
Not just
early years
Not just
‘lovely’
Targeted
impact
Evaluate &
Evidence
Diverse
partners
11. 2. Increase your knowledge
Join GWT & access
intergenerational
training
Join a supportive
network of
colleagues
Read case studies
& research
Learn about the
intergenerational
quality standards
If you need support
& direction –
contact GWT
12. Kaplan
Levels
1. Learn about the other age group
2. Seeing the other age group but at a distance
3. Meeting each other
4. Annual or periodic activities
5. Demonstration projects
6. Ongoing intergenerational programmes
7. Intergenerational community settings
13. IG Quality
Standards
Reciprocal learning
Valuing generational diversity
Challenging age discrimination
Adopts a life course perspective
Fosters intergenerational relationships & bonding
Cross disciplinary knowledge base
Good project management principles
Effective evaluation
IG practitioners' behaviour, attitudes & beliefs
Introductions: Lorraine & Denise – tech support & handover to Judith to introduce herself
Zoom etiquette reminders:
Please put your camera on if you can as it helps to network and makes links to other IG colleagues
My presentation will last about 30 mins, followed by Judiths & then time for a Q&A at the end. Feel free to pop any questions in the chat & Denise will keep an eye on them and make sure they get answered.
You can find the chat function at the bottom of the screen.
Can you also make sure that you are muted & microphone is off so that the sound isn’t affected by anyone else.
Slides will be on the website after the conference so that you can view them.
Quite a few people ticked the box on the booking form stating that they hoped to meet other intergenerational practitioners so feel free to post your contact details & what you do in the chat so that everyone can copy & paste it at the end and you can contact each other.
For those of us currently developing intergenerational practice within this relatively new field, there isn’t a clear training pathway for practitioners to follow in terms of developing their own knowledge and improving their practice.
In this session Judith and I are going to give an overview of how practitioners regardless of their field can do this:
Going to focus on the following:- bear in mind we have one hour & you can spend a day just learning about IG principles alone
We will explore the journey from intergenerational practice to becoming a recognised intergenerational practitioner. Find out what training opportunities are available to you, the networks that can support your intergenerational development, the pathways for children and young people and the quality standards to embed into your practice.
This session will support intergenerational practitioners of all ages in understanding the variety of pathways they can follow with regards to building on their existing learning, as they develop an intergenerational element to their practice or care within the community.
We will explore how knowledge changes multigenerational work into intergenerational good practice and how recognised intergenerational quality standards should be embedded into everything we do.
As part of building a field of intergenerational practitioners we will then explore the training currently available in the UK and the benefits of networking within a community of intergenerational practitioners.
To make sure we have the same understanding of IG practice - Read
-Intergenerational practice includes projects, activities, or events where people of different generations, who might otherwise never have connected, do things together in positive and creative ways building relationships, respect, and trust.
Why develop an intergenerational approach
Intergenerational relationships used to be a natural part of our lives and traditions, especially within families.
decline in relationships between different generations. For example there have been
changes within our family structures, such as changes to when people have their children and there are now new roles for working women
fading of intergenerational trust
development of age segregated activities and living arrangements which have further distanced the older and younger generations, from each other.
As with all types of practice – teaching, nursing, social work etc IG work has principles that underlie best IG practice, which we as practitioners should embed in to our practice
Read
Summary of the benefits of IG work but there are many more not listed- all of these benefits are evidenced by a growing bank of research
In Webinar 9 (Judith & I) you’ll find much more details about the befits of IG work upon the participants the workplace & the community
Still time to book, or can watch the recording at a later date
I would guess everyone in this webinar is from one of these backgrounds:
Academic- student, Professor, researcher
LA’s & Govt - various – challenging Ageism
Education – early years, pupil, teacher, Head
Community – Development Worker, Asset based community builder, community organisation – befriending /loneliness
Health/Care sector – Social Prescribing, social care worker, activity lead care home, Manager,
Housing – retirement villages, IG spaces in community, architect
Volunteer/ charity- refugees, mentoring, Mens Sheds,
Other- any & all not mentioned
MOST OF US WORK WITHIN OUR OWN FIELD, VERY LITTLE CROSS DISCPLINARY WORK- what is the impact of this?
IG learning is a new developing field both in terms of practice, research & the world of academia.
Cross disciplinary work is starting to happen but there is a lack of joined up, cross professional working to enable us to raise the profile if IG work
This leads to the above consequences :
YET…one of the principles of IG work is that it is cross-disciplinary and this is hard to do as we often don’t have the time, funding or direction to work in partnership in our own organisations let alone try & work with others
What can we do about this?
As a lone practitioner starting IG work is a journey with many working on a different level & in a different way but there are things that you should do along the way to reach your destination of becoming a recognised IG practitioner offering quality practice.
Discuss this more in the following slides:
1 – Change the narrative- shift the perception of IG work so that is no longer seen as something lovely to do BUT something we should do because of the targeted impact it can have. Seek funding for IG projects involving other ages.
2 – Increase your knowledge base & read more & link with partners & like minded colleagues in other fields, and have professional cross- disciplinary conversations
3 – Embed the IG quality standards & become reflective practitioners so that we can keep moving forward – are we truly intergenerational?
4 – Evaluate IG work so that collectively it builds on the bank of evidence & share the impact, both negative & positive to be accepted as a professional field
Lets look at these in more detail:
Change the narrative:
Supporting people to understand the difference between MG & IG
It’s not just about young children & residential adults - need to seek funding for different types of funding
Promote the wider benefits of an intergenerational approach- BUT we need to have knowledge as to what they are
Targeted impact - Highlight the specific changes that link to organisations priorities & outcomes to ringfence time & funding eg improving school readiness/ supporting vulnerable children/increasing exercise/reducing isolation & loneliness
Evaluate & collect evidence to support your claim & demonstrate impact
Start cross-disciplinary conversations & partnerships within own organisations & outside
2– Increase your knowledge base as an individual or an organisation
Become a member of GWT – free in Scotland- also have an international membership & you can join as an organistaion
Access GWT IG training– online introductory modules, 1 day CPD accredited training & IDIL Diploma – 8 weeks- new training being developed on IG Quality Standards & Kaplan Levels
link with partners & like minded colleagues through the GWT networks – local & 5 thematic
Link with other IG practitioners in other fields, and have professional conversations
Read case studies such as Excellence Awards - don’t reinvent the wheel , follow examples of good practice
Our resources page on the website breaks up the case studies, external links/publications and tools into a variety of popular themes of IG work.
GWT is gathering a library of academic evidence to share with members who would otherwise be unable to obtain copies of publications and professional articles. The library will provide affirmation from the field and will be easy accessible for members to increase their knowledge and understanding of intergenerational practice providing evidence to assist in developing new, improving and sustaining projects for longer periods. The library and network meetings will provide much needed evidence which will assist individuals in future planning of projects, funding applications and for strategic players looking to embed intergenerational approaches into policy and strategic reports.
Learn about the Kaplan Levels or the IG Quality Standards? (Dev training in this later this year)
If you need advice & support – complete the online modules or email us
Do you know where you are on the Kaplan Levels?
Arrow dictates level of IG contact 1 –lowest – to 9 highest
No physical contact but just learn about other age groups
Find out about each other – but no actual contact eg penpals, virtual
Meet each other- planned as a one off
Annual or periodic activities- tied to a community event eg Xmas/Easter
Demonstration projects which are Regular meetings & shared activities, intensive IG dialogue, sharing & learning eg coaching in job skills
Ongoing IG programmes, effective & successful, sustainable – integrated & sustainable
IG Community settings – IG principles fully embedded in social norms & traditions
9 Quality standards – this what you would expect to see as IG best practice if someone was coming to ‘judge/inspect/grade’ your IG practice
If someone asked you what made your programme intergenerational rather than multigenerational – would you know?
3 – Become reflective practitioner what does this mean? A reflective practitioner is someone who, at regular intervals, looks back at the work they do, and the work process, and considers how they can improve. They ‘reflect’ on the work they have done & constantly strive to improve and move their practice forward.
Are you multi-generational or intergenerational – how do you know?
Is your work truly intergenerational- how do you know? Can you articulate the reasons why it’s IG rather than MG?
What aspects make it intergenerational?
Embed the IG quality standards & become reflective practitioners so that we can keep moving forward. How can you compare the quality of your IG work if you ‘re not aware of them?
What does intergenerational quality look like?- For the participants & the regulatory body? We’re currently having conversations with the Care Inspectorate about what does quality look like for Inspectors?
4 - Evaluate IG work so that collectively it builds on the bank of evidence
Strengthen the field of IG learning by improving your practice – we all need to gt better at monitoring & evaluating what we do
We know the people we work with and can therefore observe and understand impact it has upon them
Assess – goes back to cycle - Seven levels of IG engagement& Quality standards
Complete the online module by Ali Somers – gives you ideas & resources in how to present your findings
Evaluating own project builds confidence – talk knowledgeable & share widely
Evaluation:enables us to demonstrate objectively that intergenerational projects make a difference;
motivates participants, volunteers and staff to contribute to make a positive difference for other people;
requires an evidence-based approach to understanding what works and what we will need to do differently in the future;
demonstrates that our work meets the quality standards for intergenerational practice;
provides evidence for funders that we have achieved the aims of the project they funded and that intergenerational projects are cost effective and worth future commissioning;
ensures learning from our project is captured and disseminated, contributing to the growing understanding and theoretical basis for intergenerational practice;
helps secure future and long term funding;
from an appreciative inquiry point of view - to search for and highlight the good that there is in any project, its positive core and also its negative
Shout about what you do & share widely- Global IG Week 25th April
Exciting things are happening in the field of intergenerational learning:
GWT-
Developing an IG pathway for children & young people- IG guidance for teachers
Supporting extra-curricula IG activities for Scouts
Training:: Blended learning model of training- online & resuming face to face training across Scotland – dates on website & developing new training programmes
Developing additional training exploring the quality standards
Keen to involve & support early years
Regulators & LA’s
Research
Partnerships
Cross disciplinary
Exciting things planned which we can’t share yet
Over to Judith and her news