Active Ageing Evaluation Team, Newcastle University.

Thanks to everyone who  completed feedback on our interview questions for the Active Ageing Programme evaluation. We appreciate the time you took to respond and your thoughtful comments and suggestions.

What is the purpose of our evaluation project?

For those of you who may not have taken part please see the Summary box below for information regarding our current evaluation project and input from VOICE members.  

Summary of project and VOICE member input

Maintaining independence and social and physical activity levels is essential to ageing well. A programme in Newcastle is testing out various forms of exercise and social opportunities to help encourage and improve physical and social wellbeing for local older people living with frailty. 

A research team at Newcastle University are conducting an evaluation of this ‘Active Ageing’ Programme, to help understand how people may have benefitted from taking part and to learn about any challenges they may have experienced. 

Input from VOICE members is helping to  ensure we are asking appropriate questions which will help us understand the experiences and views of Active Ageing Programme participants. This will improve the way we carry out our evaluation and also inform future projects and research of a similar nature.

What have we learnt from your input?

We received responses from 28 individual VOICE members. We are really pleased to hear that most of our questions were clear and appropriate. The suggestions for improvement included lots of ideas about how to simplify the wording of questions, making sure we use language that is used in everyday speech. We also received suggestions on other questions to consider to make sure we are truly understanding participants’ thoughts and experiences of the programme. We have considered these suggestions carefully and made changes to our questions.

VOICE members also reminded us that the people we will be speaking to may have experienced a range of physical responses (e.g. tiredness, painful joints) and emotions (e.g. shame, embarrassment, low self-esteem) alongside living with other illnesses (e.g. depression) and varying personal circumstances. Financial implications of travelling to the activities were highlighted as particularly important to consider.

What’s Next?

We are encouraged by the positive feedback about the programme and our evaluation work. We will be completing interviews over the next two months and producing a report to summarise our findings for the programme organisers. If you would like to receive a copy of any published reports or academic journal articles based on this work, please ask the VOICE team to share your contact details with us. We will provide copies of publications by email or post, depending on your individual preference. 

Thank you again to everyone who helped with designing our interview guide and advising us on what else to consider when we conduct the interviews. Working with VOICE members has been a valuable activity for us that has improved our work.