'Communities of Practice Forum: Exploring Older Men’s Participation in arts & wellbeing Services' - Resources

Resources from our 'Communities of Practice Forum: Exploring Older Men’s Participation in arts & wellbeing Services' meetings

Our ‘Communities of Practice Forum: Exploring Older Men’s Participation in arts & wellbeing Services’ sessions offer an informal space for arts & wellbeing providers to meet, share ideas and develop their practice around supporting and working alongside older men in their services. Sessions are facilitated in partnership with specialist practitioners and organisations, including Tony Cealy, Celebrating Age Wiltshire’s Creative Conversations groups, and Time & Talents’ Older Men’s Groups.

We meet twice a year and anyone who is interested in developing their practice around supporting and working alongside older men in arts and wellbeing is very welcome to join.

Here are some of the links and resources that have been shared during our Forum meetings:

July '26

  • The July ’26 meeting was delivered in partnership with Shaun Packham (T&T’s Community Activities Facilitator – Older Adults), Anne Grimwade (T&T’s Senior Manager – Older Adults & Volunteering) and Roger and Paul from Time & Talents’ Older Men’s Groups. 
  • The session explored the development of T&T’s Older Men’s Groups over the past 10 years, including learnings about Accessibility, Inclusion and Communication, shared individual stories from participants, and facilitated discussions on establishing older men’s groups and exploring dynamics in older men’s groups.  
  • You can access the summary toolkit from the discussion here, with many thanks again to the Time & Talents’ team and to all of the participants in the session for kindly sharing these insights and reflections.

July '25

  • The July ’25 meeting was delivered in partnership with Rebecca Seymour (Creative Producer, Celebrating Age Wiltshire), David Davies (Creative Facilitator for Creative Conversations groups) and David Walker (CAW participant, older advisor and member of Melksham Men’s group) from Celebrating Age Wiltshire (CAW): Creative Conversations groups for men aged 65+. 
  • During the session, the team talked through: how CAW established the Creative Conversations model; how and why the men aged 65+ strand was developed; and
    co-creation and the outcomes so far – both for wellbeing and creativity. 
  • You can access the Presentation slides from the discussion here, with many thanks again to the Celebrating Age Wiltshire team for kindly sharing these resources.

April '25

  • The April ’25 meeting was delivered in partnership with Tony Cealy, theatre practitioner and cultural producer. Tony is passionate about developing policy solutions alongside people most affected by them.
  • During the session, Tony talked through some of the learning, experience and understanding he has developed on projects and programmes he has collaborated with in what he calls ‘working with Man Dem’.
  • You can access the shared links and resources from the discussion here, with many thanks to Tony and everyone who took part in the session for kindly sharing these resources.