Feelings of safety in context: Social policy for and by older people 28 th August 2009 De Donder Liesbeth Dominique Verté, Nico De Witte, Tine Buffel, Sarah Dury

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August History 2002 –Flemish law on ‘ participation of elderly’ Against ageist discrimination and social exclusion Involve elderly in policy planning Environmental analysis –Flemish municipalities: S.O.S. –Development of a ‘research-policy’network

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August 2009

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August History 2003: Development of a ‘complete package’ –Questionnaire –Research scenario –Software programme –Training programmes 2004: Pilot studies in 11 municipalities 2005: Refinement of the package 2006: Expansion over Flanders 2009: elderly

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August How does it work? Dividing tasks –Vrije Universiteit Brussel Scientific control Data cleaning Descriptive analyses of the data Presentation of the results –Province Coordination of the fieldwork (research supervisors) Department of ‘Social Planning’

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August How does it work? –Local municipality To draw a representative sample (quota) Data collection –Peer research: elderly interviewing elderly –Finding volunteers through multi-staged system Administration Input of the questionnaires

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August Current status: 2009 Flanders – elderly –6000 volunteers –120 Flemish municipalities + 30 Flemish municipalities –1 Flemish municipality for the second time. –Depending on the municipality, between 65% and 85% of those contacted were willing to participate. Belgium –Brussels –2 municipalities in Walloon region

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August Current status: 2009 Europe –2 municipalities in Italy –2 municipalities in the Netherlands Side projects –Foreign elderly –Qualitative in depth research –Research scenario 2: How to translate facts and figures into policy? –Thematic workshops –…..

Belgian Ageing Studies 28 th August Results For elderly and the municipality –Comparison possible –Active engagement of older people –Develops a sense of co-ownership –Increases the opportunities for older people to participate in policymaking-processes Theoretically and empirically –Recognizing gerontology as an engaged science –Thinking about what society might be –Large dataset

Feelings of safety in context: Social policy for and by older people 28 August 2009 De Donder Liesbeth Dominique Verté, Nico De Witte, Tine Buffel, Sarah Dury