Green Gown Awards 2017 - Ayrshire College - Highly Commended

The Older Adult Group

The ‘Older Adult’ project was started by the College’s Sport and Fitness team as a response to worrying statistics published in the Scottish Public Health Observatory 2010 Health and Wellbeing profiles. Such as ‘East Ayrshire’s overall life expectancy is significantly worse than the Scottish average’, and ‘mental health rates are above the national average in East Ayrshire, and are increasing’.

Throughout the year, a group of older adults (aged 60-86) in East Ayrshire meet with staff and students at the College to develop and maintain their health and wellbeing. The focus has been to inspire the elderly to get fitter and more active. Their results are recorded each week and the College has seen major improvements in each person’s fitness.

This project not only assists in the learning experience of our students, it also promotes sustainable community development.

Top 3 learnings:

1 Our students can be the people to resolve the health problems within our society. 

2 Our students know they can create a weekly programme for older adults that produces results.

3 We learned that as well as physical benefits, there are major social benefits to this project.

Videos

• The Older Adult Group (click to hide)