Innovation and Change: An Update on the ‘Better Life’ Project

I thought a quick blog (why does that sound always obscene? Is it just me?) would be a useful update for participants and for everyone interested in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 'Better Life' program.

The community based strand of the programme for older people living in their own homes (as opposed to 'My Home Life', which concentrates on improving lives in residential care – see www.myhomelife.org.uk/index.htm) asked for input from myself, Shaping Our Lives (a national user-led network) and Counsel and Care. My brief was to look for innovations improving the lives of older people in the community with high support needs, taking an investigative journalist's approach (drunk?). Trying to get other people to do my work for me, I sent out about 100 questionnaires to older people and professionals and posted blogs inviting contributions.

The approach was a success, though I would now love to have shaped the questions slightly differently. Some people were too busy to reply but many came up with ideas and contacts that helped me find my bearings. I also got a lot of useful quotations, which are choice reading for people more interested in the human dilemmas of older age than technical innovation.

Once you get some good leads you can get into a research groove, drunk or even sober. There is innovation all around: the problem in writing a paper is more one of selection than of location.

The 'Better Life' board organised a presentation day last month. This was partly to keep up project momentum for board members – but it gave writers a chance to review the strengths and weaknesses of their papers, allowing board members to point out gaps, too.

It was a helpful day for me: I got more research leads to follow up, some useful critical thoughts and a re-ignited enthusiasm for getting back to the work. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

There are still some gaps that I'd love to fill: I couldn't get as much as I would have liked on the US and I feel like I missed out on most of Asia and the developing world, areas where I know there are bound to be interesting ideas. If anyone has useful information or contacts related to these areas (or to co-operative housing… or innovation in New Zealand and Japan) I'd be really grateful for some help – leave a message!

I can't think of anything I have taken more pleasure in writing in a 30 year journalistic, professional and academic career. I really enjoyed the process of research and of making new contacts. Most people I talked to felt passionately about the subject because it is so obviously important. I do, too. Not wanting to sound like a hippie or anything but there was a real sense of a following wind: lots of helpful co-incidences and odd synergies that really helped the process of writing. On a personal level it gave me a lot of energy: I have involved myself in a number of projects arising from ideas and suggestions that came up - like trying to interest Question Time in an edition dedicated to older people’s issues, for example.

'The philosophers have only interpreted the world… the point is to change it' says that well known hippie Karl Marx. I hope people will enjoy reading the paper as much as I enjoyed writing it – and that people will be inspired to go out and do something innovative for themselves, too.