Age-friendly communities: samenwerken aan passende leefomgeving, voor en met senioren

Age-friendly communities in which citizens of all ages live comfortably together and care for each other, with professionals and volunteers as support, is the vision of the future. Over the past three years, the Netherlands has made extensive efforts to develop local networks around the issue of an aging society. However, what works to help these communities grow and thrive? In a participatory action research, we learned together with stakeholders from 110 local networks in the Netherlands who experimented about the effective mechanisms of these local networks. Important mechanisms are: 1) thinking from an eco-system approach; 2) wicked skills of those involved; 3) process-driven with a broad mix of perspectives and forces; 4) facilitating learning together, and 5) seniors as equal (discussion) partners. This study shows that collaboration between professionals and seniors is particularly challenging in networks. Awareness of the moral-existential aspects of collaboration is important, as are the skills to make room for this in daily practice and the willingness to learn about this together.