Age Friendly

How the Strategy was
Developed and the Working
Groups Set Up
Bernie Bradley and Catherine McGuigan wrote
the draft strategy for the Age Friendly County
programme in Monaghan, drawing on all the
issues raised during the consultation process.
Monaghan’s Age Friendly Strategy was officially
launched in June 2012 and was attended by
a wide group of local organisations and older
people and Jan O’Sullivan, the Minister of
State for Housing and Planning in the
Department of the Environment, Community
and Local Government.
Then, the real work began. Members of
the Alliance opted to go on working groups
to tackle specific tasks. For example,
one working group was set up to make
Castleblayney an Age Friendly Town, another
to offer better transport links – particularly
to hospitals and day care centres, another to
find new ways of tackling crime and another
to provide older people with information
about everything from welfare entitlements to
computer training courses. The progress to
date has been very impressive (see panel).
How the First Review
was Planned
Bernie Bradley organised the first review of
Monaghan’s Age Friendly County programme
in May 2014. Members of the Older People’s
Forum and members of the Age Friendly
Alliance met in Castleblayney. It was almost
three years since the programme began and
while there were a lot of achievements in that
time, everyone agreed that there were areas
which could be improved.
“The most successful actions have been
based on what older people said they wanted.
We always said that nothing is too local or
too personal. If it’s affecting you, it’s affecting
other people,” says Bradley. Attendance was a
bit lower than expected (Friday is not a great
day to gather a crowd, one person quipped)
but the feedback was strong. Most people
agreed that better communication about
what’s available in Monaghan is what was
most important now. “We need to inform
everyone about our services – on our website,
with leaflets, on the radio,” says P J Harte.
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