Becoming Intergenerational “grandfriends”

We speak of homes as being shells, structures that protect us from the variable weather conditions and keep us safe from predators. They are the containers into which we pour those items that are considered essential for our basic daily needs. These are indeed habitations, but a home is so much more and, when designing housing, planning for the quality of people’s lives, the opportunities for relationships, accessibility, inclusivity, adaptability, an enabling environment should all have equal weight to the structure and nuts and bolts of the physical environment.  

Housing developments should not just be places to live, they need to promote social and emotional wellness. They are places where we can live well, developing, maintaining and repairing relationships and community. We need both safe physical and safe emotional spaces. This holistic approach will be most effective at developing high level quality of life. AHN Education and Training supports those working in the housing sector to do just that, by providing training which will lead to a better understanding of intergenerationally, its potential for social cohesion and the best ways to create an environment that encourages and enables intergenerational relationships

Apples and Honey Nightingale CIC opened in 2017 as a co-located early years setting in the grounds of Nightingale House, the South London site of Nightingale Hammerson Care Homes.  Our wonderful experiences of bringing the nursery children together with their ‘grandfriends’ daily, encouraged us to develop accredited training in intergenerational practice to encourage more impactful, therapeutically and developmentally beneficial intergenerational programmes nationally. Intergenerational work has such great potential to transform lives and our aim is for it to be a respected expertise, integrated into care and education career pathways. Understanding safe, accessible and enabling environments is crucial in facilitating intergenerational interactions and is embedded in our training which is also relevant to anyone interested in housing, social policy and community development.

We have listened to stakeholders and developed our training to be accessible to as many people as possible by adapting it to suit different work and lifestyles. Our diverse courses range from one-day introductory training to a yearlong, part-time accredited level 3 qualification. We can advise on accessibility and inclusivity, both in the physical sense and therapeutically. For housing developments to thrive, the needs of the local communities must be understood at the planning stages right through to delivery of social programming that aims to enhance quality of life, promote social justice, and foster community engagement.

At our first residential summer school this year, participants were totally immersed in intergenerational (IG) practice, eating with residents, joining in daily IG sessions ranging from ballet, through poetry, exercises, gardening and even extracting honey from our beehives. They had workshops, listened to expert speakers and met with the stakeholders; therapists, carers, teachers, relatives, porters and, of course, the children and their grandfriends.

‘Thank you all so much for an incredibly inspiring week. I learnt so much and am really excited to see where this knowledge takes me!’ AO

We are also excited to follow Anna’s intergenerational journey and to facilitate more intergenerational travellers as they develop their IG skills and confidence through our education programmes.

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For more about AHN Education and Training, visit: https://ahnintergenerationaltraining.co.uk

For more about Apples and Honey Nightingale, visit: https://www.applesandhoneynightingale.com/

And, for more about Nightingale Hammerson’s North London’s home, shortlisted for the 2022 HAPPI Housing Design Award, visit: https://hdawards.org/scheme/hammerson-house-wohl-campus-2/

Lastly, if you want to learn more about intergenerational housing, the Housing LIN curates a dedicated resource page at:  https://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/Housing/HousingforOlderPeople/intergenerational-housing/