People across Victoria are now living longer and healthier lives. To respond to this exciting change, we need age friendly cities and communities: places where older people live safely, enjoy good health and stay involved.

What makes an age friendly community?

In 2006, the World Health Organisation brought together 33 cities to discover what makes a city a good place to grow old. They identified eight domains for age-friendly communities:

• outdoor spaces and buildings
• transportation
• housing
• social participation
• respect and social inclusion
• civic participation and employment
• communication and information
• community support and health services.

To develop age friendly communities, older people need to be actively involved – making decisions, planning and implementing sustainable change, and evaluating the results.

Make your community more age friendly

Since 2013, our COTA Victoria Age Friendly Initiative has been supporting local governments, service providers and residents to make their communities age friendly. Taking a partnership approach, we:

• work with older people to establish local networks across government, business and community to develop an action plan to bring about positive change
• mentor, train and support older people to act as consumer representatives on advisory groups and committees
• work with local governments and community groups to engage local communities to develop age friendly cities.

Learn more about making your community age friendly with our Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Information Kit for Local Government Councillors and Senior Management, or if you need more support, contact us at cotavic@cotavic.org.au or phone (03) 9655 2100.

What people say about COTA Age Friendly

‘I would like to acknowledge the support COTA staff provided for our communities in East Gippsland … we are grateful for the assistance to focus our efforts on working with such a large socio-demographic change. The work undertaken in East Gippsland by COTA staff has assisted communities to understand the concepts of what an Age Friendly community entails and how their voices can be heard in the ongoing discussion.’

– Cr Joe Rettino, Mayor, East Gippsland

‘[We have] appreciated COTA’s partnership and support … with the development of the Age Friendly Champions program through the delivery of the training workshop during the consultation phase of the Active & Healthy Ageing Initiative. Maroondah considers COTA Victoria to be an important partner in the Age Friendly space.’

– Maroondah City Council