Age Friendly Services Week

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About Age Friendly Services Week

What is Age Friendly Services Week

Age Friendly Services Week

The International Day of Older Persons on 1 October will mark the start of South Australia's first annual Age Friendly Services Week, an opportunity for older people to provide feedback about the age friendliness of the South Australian government services they receive.

Older people, in partnership with a range of government customer service staff, have helped develop a range of project resources, including: Age Friendly Customer Service Guidelines, tools to engage service staff, promotional posters, and customer feedback surveys.

Participating services will gather customer feedback through a survey – online, in-person, or over the phone, with a hardcopy ‘postcard’ version also available. The feedback will be used to make customer service quality improvements, to refine resources and to inform expansion of the approach to other government services.

Seniors Card, SA Public Transport Authority, Women's Information Service, Concessions and Support Services, SA Housing Authority, Public Library Services, and Public Trustee pilot-tested the week in 2021.

Public Library Services, Office of the Public Advocate, Department for Infrastructure and Transport, Women's Information Service, Adelaide Festival Centre, City of Onkaparinga and Office for Ageing Well are participating in Age Friendly Services Workshops in 2022.

The Age Friendly Services project is an early action of South Australia's Plan for Ageing Well 2020-2025, which recognises the need to cultivate inclusive communities and challenge ageism.

Why is Age Friendly Services Week important?

The South Australian Government continues to expand South Australia’s capacity as an age friendly state, building on the Age Friendly SA Strategy and Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Older South Australians; upholding the rights of older people to safety, dignity, autonomy, and valuing their contributions to our communities.

Age Friendly Services Week gives us a chance to improve the customer experiences of older people who access a range of government services and to enable them to stay connected to the services they need, now and when they need them.

Get involved in Age Friendly Services Week

A feedback survey has been developed to gather the views of customers about the age friendliness of the services they receive during the Week. The survey is available, from the Office for Ageing Well as a hardcopy postcard or an electronic survey. Staff can provide a link to the online survey or ask feedback questions over the phone/in person and record the responses. Customers may prefer to use the hardcopy survey postcard option instead; these are intended to be completed at the time an older person accesses services and retained by the service. Office for Ageing Well will arrange to collect feedback at the end of the Week. Feedback will be used to make customer service quality improvements, to refine resources and to inform expansion of the approach to other government services.

Age Friendly Services Training Workshops

Free staff training workshops

Supported by Office for Ageing Well, free Age Friendly Services Workshops are available for government services staff and volunteers. Facilitated by Socially Connected Solutions, participants dive deeper into the principles of age friendliness including leadership, diversity, accessibility, dignity and participation and prepare for involvement in Age Friendly Services Week.

Age Friendly Guides (older people), the workshop facilitator and the suite of Age Friendly resources, will support teams to increase their understanding of the customer service needs of older people and how to prepare their service for Age Friendly Services Week. Ageism is explored and focus areas for age friendly improvements identified. With increased confidence, knowledge and skills teams are encouraged to share learnings within their wider workplace and to plan for, implement and test age friendly service strategies during Age Friendly Services Week.

Workshops were successfully pilot-tested in 2021.

Contact information to express interest in staff engagement workshops

For more information or to express interest in attending an upcoming workshop please contact the Office for Ageing Well officeforageingwell@sa.gov.au.

Age Friendly Services Week Resources