We are two friends and ex-colleagues working together to try to influence an issue we care deeply about. We know we are all getting older, and our lives and the lives of the people we care about are changing as a result – sometimes gloriously for the better, sometimes worryingly for the worst…..and most often somewhere in the middle.

We two have long careers and lots of experience in the world of care and support with a shared passion for people and communities and making the most of everything that’s strong. Alongside these professional journeys are personal journeys and in recent years, for us both, these two strands of life have merged, blurred and interacted. I think we have always been aware of the tiny range of social care and support services available to older people – things like care homes, home care and day centers. We have probably also been conscious of the view, baked into much of our society, that if we become ‘frail’ or ‘vulnerable’ or ‘lack capacity’ then it is really inevitable that we ‘go into a home’ or get ‘4 calls a day’. Our lives of wisdom, relationships, doing and giving becoming lives of passivity, disconnection, time filling ‘activities’ and ‘needs’……..unquestioned, inevitable. Perhaps, until now, we have never really given that full scrutiny it deserves or stopped to question the implications for us, the people we care about and society as a whole.

As older people/people thinking about getting older, we personally view many of the supports and services currently available for older people with dread. Acting together, we are potentially a huge force for change – but only if we are clear now about the services and supports we want when the time comes for us to need it.  So, we are opening a space for conversations and positive disruption. We want your help to create a movement for much greater choice.

We have the power to change things for the better… but first we need to come together.

#WhenIGetOld

Angela Catley and Sian Lockwood