Enhancing our understanding of later life

BSG ERA are pleased to announce a podcast collaboration with the Later Life Audio and Radio Co-operative (LLARC). Throughout this podcast project, Dr Mervyn Eastman and Dr Arlind Reuter (chair of BSG ERA) speak to ERA researchers about their research on ageing.

In this photovoice exhibition, nine older people from Myanmar living in Mae Sai share their perspectives on their daily lives and what care means to them, shedding light on the importance of nature and religion. This participatory project was part of Samia Akhter-Khan’s PhD project and co-produced with Ben Lu, a 60-year-old woman from Myanmar living in Mae Sai. Pre- and post-comparisons of loneliness show that older people felt less lonely after the project, suggesting that photovoice may function as an intervention for loneliness among older migrants. The exhibition was curated by participants themselves, was exhibited live in Mae Sai and London, and is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the definition of care and visualizes how older people provide for others

BSG are partnering with CADR on their creative ageing competition.

Long-term campaigners for older people will have been deeply saddened by the recent deaths of two great servants of the age sector: Mervyn Kohler and Phil Rossall. In their very different ways they contributed hugely to effective campaigning by Help the Aged, and then Age UK, which saw older people’s interests advance even in difficult times.

His Majesty's Inspectorate of probation commissioned Nichola Cadet, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University to support probation staff to understand and support the needs of older people on probation. The report highlights the increasing numbers of older people under probation supervision, either serving community sentences or following release from custody. Recommendations which create synergies between criminological theory and gerontology are made to support practitioners to build on their existing skills

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London have created an innovative framework, titled the Social Relationship Expectations (SRE) Framework, to explain the mechanisms behind loneliness in older adults and inform future research on interventions. The research, published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, identifies what older adults expect from their social relationships. These expectations get at the core of how loneliness is commonly defined: as the gap between expected and actual social relationships.