Intergenerational Practice Resources

Resources from our 'Intergenerational Forum' meetings

Our Intergenerational Forum offers an informal space for arts & wellbeing providers to meet and share ideas around developing intergenerational practice in their services. Sessions are facilitated in partnership with specialist intergenerational practitioners and organisations, including Chickenshed Theatre, Time & Talents, Magic Me, InCommon, Intergenerational Music Making (IMM), McCarthy Stone Foundation, and Jazanne Arts.

We meet quarterly and anyone who is interested in developing their intergenerational practice is very welcome to join.

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

The November ’23 meeting was delivered in partnership with Annie Smol MBE and Jacqui Livingston, Founders and Directors of Jazanne Arts. Jazanne Arts is a small not for profit that places older people at the heart of their work using the arts to make connections and improve lives.
During the session, Annie and Jacqui focused on intergenerational arts projects for primary school children and people aged 65+, using their recent partnership project ‘My Home’ as a basis to spark discussion on:
– Setting up intergenerational projects – finding and sustaining suitable partners
– Structuring intergenerational projects
– Process V product
– Monitoring and Evaluation of projects
– The health and well-being benefits of intergenerational projects
You can access their film ‘How to Age Successfully‘ here, with many thanks again to Annie and Jacqui for kindly sharing this resource. Jazanne Arts would love the film to help support an ongoing discussion on how to age successfully, offering a space for people to share their tips and thoughts. Please do feel free to share any tips or thoughts that you might have in the comments section below the film, and join the conversation!

The June ’23 meeting was delivered in partnership with Charlotte Miller (Founder & Director) and Emily Abbott (Programme Director) from Intergenerational Music Making (IMM) – a national not-for-profit working to advance wellbeing and social cohesion through projects, creative social hubs, training, research and campaigning.
Charlotte and Emily delivered a presentation and facilitated a discussion exploring the key themes and findings taken from their recent conference, ‘Intergenerational Practice: Creative Change Together’, including:
– Intergenerational Injustices
– The role of places and spaces
– Social value
– Community ripple effect
– Youth action.
You can access the Slides & notes from the presentation here, with many thanks to Charlotte and Emily for kindly sharing these resources.
You can access the Talking Generations Campaign booklet here, with information about how to get involved and support the campaign.
Here’s a link to the Spotify Playlist of favourite songs mentioned during the session.

The April ’23 meeting was delivered in partnership with Graeme Marsh (Head of Foundation) and Julia Laister (Foundation Coordinator) from the McCarthy Stone Foundation – a Foundation which helps charities and organisations to change lives across the UK for the better while strengthening links between generations.
Graeme delivered a presentation and facilitated a discussion exploring: challenges and successes within the intergenerational funding landscape, getting your governance right, understanding the changes you create, making your case for support as an organisation, and measuring what you manage.
You can view the video recording of the presentation here.
You can access the Slides & notes from the presentation here, with many thanks to Graeme and Julia for kindly sharing these resources.

The December ’22 meeting was delivered in partnership with Rosy Banham (Programme Manager) and Michaela Tranfield (Programme Officer) from InCommon – a charity which connects young people with their older neighbours in retirement homes to learn and build friendships together.
The InCommon team facilitated a discussion around their anti-prejudice charter, which seeks to challenge inequalities and foster inclusion.
They explored how this charter feeds into their intergenerational workshops for children and older people, and opened up a conversation about how we can create inclusive intergenerational spaces for people with different identities and backgrounds.
The InCommon team kindly agreed to share their Anti-prejudice Facilitation Framework (on a time-limited basis) Please note: these slides are for internal use only. InCommon don’t intend for the framework to be published online, so we appreciate you not sharing it on social media or with your wider networks.

The October ’22 meeting was delivered in partnership with Kate Hodson (Programme Director), Catherine Connell (Senior Project Manager), and Emily Bird (Project Manager) at Magic Me.
The Magic Me team facilitated a discussion around the different motivations and approaches that we can take into intergenerational work, and outlined Magic Me’s core Principles of Intergenerational Practice.
Motivations and Principles shared from the discussion.
Blog post from Magic Me’s Director, Susan Langford MBE, on what’s important about intergenerational work
Magic Me’s book Sharing the Experience

The June ’22 meeting was delivered in partnership with Phoebe Grudzinskas (Delivery Manager at Time & Talents).
Phoebe shared Time & Talents’ ‘Green Wall‘ project as an example of a remote intergenerational project and explored the Community Centre as an intergenerational space, discussing how different age-defined programmes can be more closely integrated across generations.
June ’22 Forum notes developed from the discussion.

The March ’22 meeting was delivered in partnership with Rachel Yates (Creative Producer of Projects & Programme Manager of The Space Between Us Programme at Chickenshed Theatre).
Rachel shared their ‘Living Letters‘ project and discussed the use of anonymity as a creative and playful spark for intergenerational connection, ensuring that participants are focusing on shared experiences rather than their respective ages.
You can view Chickenshed’s film about the ‘Living Letters’ project below: