Active Families

About the project

Supporting and improving lives of older people has never been more important and something Active Families North East is fully committed to. We will create a range of innovative interventions and support services through our mobile Active Forever Well’bean’ Machine that, along with our highly qualified staff will improve the health and lives of vulnerable older people across Sunderland.

Recently published research from Public Health England and Age UK about the wider impact of Covid-19 really do illustrate just how badly vulnerable older people have been affected by the pandemic. With inactivity levels for over 65’s at the higher rates for 10 years resulting in how levels of deconditioning we want to use the ‘miracle drug’ of physical activity to improve health and wellbeing.

Our project will include a multitude of activities and interventions that will ensure we engage with large numbers of vulnerable older people, many of whom are living in poverty and have experienced a significant deterioration to the physical and mental wellbeing.

The project will enable Active Families to launch our well’bean’ van that will travel to those areas of Sunderland where vulnerable older people reside. The vehicle will be equipped with a range of equipment, seats for exercise/dance, coffee machine and refreshment outlet. The main focus of the project is to increase and sustain levels of physical activity in our older population but do this in an innovative and enjoyable way.

A detailed evaluation framework will be undertaken by Un Ltds’ Healthy Ageing team to ensure we are able to obtain learning from the interventions and demonstrate the impact of our work. This will also enable the project to be developed further, replicated in other areas and create a model that can reach out and improve physical activity levels and ultimately the wellbeing of more older people in other areas across the North East.