Older People's Strategy - Newcastle City Council

27The Elders Council and Quality of Life Partnership are workingwith ward co-ordination and community development on this.In addition, Newcastle City Council’s Community DevelopmentUnit also supports the work of the Quality of Life Partnershipthrough the secondment of a part-time officer to take forwardwork with older people.Newcastle has a broad range of community and voluntarysector organisations, many of which support the engagementof older people. The InfraNet project, which brings togethera number of infrastructure organisations, including NewcastleCouncil for Voluntary Service (NCVS)/Regen Forum, CommunityEmpowerment Network, The Alliance – East End CommunityDevelopment and West End Community DevelopmentConsortium, is being developed to ensure a wider and morestrategic approach to voluntary sector and community sectorinvolvement in the Newcastle Partnership. Community Action onHealth leads on the involvement of the community in healthissues. There are also specialist groups which support andprovide links to particular communities of interest e.g. Deaflink;Black and Minority Ethnic Forum; Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual andTransgender (LGBT) Forum; Newcastle Council of Faiths.Older people are often the bedrock of community activitythrough their engagement in ward committees, tenants’ andresidents’ associations, community associations, etc. However,it is often the same few key people who support this activity,and the responsibility and opportunity for engagement needsto be extended to a wider group of older people through newprocesses and capacity building.