The World Health Organization (WHO) strives to assist and inspire cities to become more ‘age-friendly’ through the Global Age-Friendly Cities Guide. An age-friendly city offers a supportive environment that enables residents to grow older actively within their families, neighbourhoods and civil society, and offers extensive opportunities for their participation in the community. In the attempts to make cities age-friendly, ageism may interact with these developments. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which features of age-friendly cities, both facilitators and hindrances, are visible in the city scape of the Dutch municipalities of The Hague and Zoetermeer and whether or not ageism is manifested explicitly or implicitly. A qualitative photoproduction study based on the Checklist of Essential Features of Age-Friendly Cities was conducted in five neighbourhoods. Both municipalities have a large number of visual age-friendly features, which are manifested in five domains of the WHO model, namely Communication and information; Housing; Transportation; Community support and health services; and Outdoor spaces and buildings. Age-stereotypes, both positive and negative, can be observed in the domain of Communication and information, especially in the depiction of third agers as winners. At the same time, older people and age-friendly features are very visible in the cityscapes of both municipalities, and this is a positive expression of the changing demographics. Original article at Sage: https://doi.org/10.1177/1420326X19857216
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Supportive social interactions between nonparental adults (i.e. social work professionals, volunteers, and other parents that have contact with children but are not the primary caregiver), parents, and children are important for children’s well-being and development. Parenting styles, types of child behaviour, and location in the neighbourhood may influence these interactions. The aim of the present study was to identify when and how nonparental adults respond in interactions with other adults and children in the neighbourhood. A mixed-method study with vignettes and interviews (N = 114) was conducted to gain insight into which factors (parenting style, child behaviour, location in the neighbourhood) influence the nonparental adults’ intention to respond to children and/or parents. Nonparental adults indicated they were most likely to respond in the context of a permissive parenting style or a child’s externalising behaviour. Professionals more often felt responsible than parents and volunteers, although they did not respond more often. All three factors were related to the participants’ willingness to respond and promote a supportive social structure in the neighbourhood. Social work professionals and their organisations can use this study to identify social support interactions and to discuss their responsibilities.--Sociaal ondersteunende interacties tussen mede-opvoeders (zoals sociaal werk-professionals, vrijwilligers en andere ouders die contact met kinderen hebben, maar niet primair verantwoordelijk zijn) zijn belangrijk voor het welzijn en een positieve ontwikkeling van kinderen. Het doel van deze studie was inzicht geven in hoe mede-opvoeders reageren in interacties met andere opvoeders en kinderen in de buurt. Een mixed-method design met vignetten en interviews is toegepast om inzicht te krijgen in welke factoren (opvoedstijl, gedrag van een kind en locatie in de buurt) de reactie van mede-opvoeders beïnvloeden. Mede-opvoeders gaven aan dat ze het meest reageren in situaties waar sprake is van een permissieve opvoedingsstijl of externaliserend gedrag van een kind. Professionals voelen zich meer verantwoordelijk dan ouders en vrijwilligers, maar reageren niet vaker. Opvoedstijl, gedrag van het kind en locatie in de buurt hangen samen met de mate waarin respondenten reageren en om een ondersteunende sociale structuur in de buurt te bevorderen. Sociaal werkers en hun organisaties kunnen deze studie gebruiken om sociaal ondersteunende interacties te identificeren and over hun verantwoordelijkheid te discussiëren.
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"How can we transform neighbourhoods in a child-friendly way to increase the quality of life for all citizens?" ContextMetamorphosis starts from the premise that when a neighbourhood has many children on its public spaces, this is a major indicator that it is well designed as a sustainable neighbourhood. The word sustainability itself is already inseparably combined with children as it implicates “designed for the next generations”. Metamorphosis focuses on children – but not only that, children will also play a crucial role in most Work Packages of the project. They will act as ambassadors, driving forces, encouragers of actions, translators, evaluators, investigators and in many more roles. As such, children represent an enormous added value to achieve unconventional and innovative findings, methods and implementations. Aim projectThe project has started in June 2017 and will last for three years. Twelve partners from seven European countries work together on this project to achieve the following goal: “Transformation of neighbourhoods in a child-friendly way to increase the quality of life for all citizens.”Role BUasBUas is Work Package leader of ‘Capacity building’. This includes sharing the lessons learned from Metamorphosis with cities and countries who are not directly involved in the project. Another important part of this Work Package is developing didactic materials in order to implement the gained knowledge from the project in curricula of educational institutes.
