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Guest Author
In this final Multigenerational Place Think Piece, Pat Scrutton, Co-ordinator of the Intergenerational National Network and co-curator of this series, shares her experience of the Network and explores perceptions of intergenerational versus multigenerational places.
We chose the title ‘Multigenerational Places’ for a reason.
When Sophia invited me to co-curate this series of think pieces, I was delighted. It gave me both the incentive and the opportunity to think!
I co-ordinate the Intergenerational National Network. When I talk about it, some people ask me what ‘intergenerational’ means; many others assume that I am talking about cute kids in care homes.
I am a linguist, and language is very important to me. I also love cryptic crosswords, and my Chambers dictionary is always at hand, so I consulted it, and it confirmed that intergenerational simply means ‘between different generations’.
When I founded the Network in March 2007, its aim was to bring people together from across Scotland who have an interest in working across generations, whatever that might look like. Members come from a multitude of backgrounds and perspectives: third sector organisations of all sizes; community groups; arts and culture; local and national government; the health sector; academia; non-governmental organisations; and individuals are equally welcome.
The importance of place was brought home to me in 2020. Before that meetings were hosted by member organisations who could offer a free venue and free tea and coffee. Once we all became aware that Covid and lockdown were with us for a while, we moved online, and gained members from a much wider geographical area. But, as soon as we were able to, we began to meet in person again. Most of our meetings are now hybrid, so that they are open to anyone, wherever they might be geographically located.
Online (and hybrid) meetings are now part of most of our lives. They have the great advantage of enabling conversations that would not otherwise take place (although there are still challenges with organising and running hybrid meetings!). What online participants miss out on, however, are the elements that are often the most appreciated. While people enjoy the presentations, they talk much more about the time spent over coffee and lingering after the meeting. Because the people in the room are often people who would not otherwise meet, the conversations are particularly rich, and people make connections between backgrounds, disciplines and areas of interest.
About 8 years ago, I met Professor Ryan Woolrych. He was leading the PLACE-AGE project, which was working in three communities in each of three cities in three countries from the perspective of the World Health Organisations concept of ‘age-friendly cities and communities’. One of their findings, unexpected by them, but not surprising to me, was that older people do not want to live in ‘ghettos’; they want to live in communities with neighbours of all ages.
Ryan introduced me to Professor Judith Sixsmith, whose research interests include ageing in place. Together with colleagues, we designed a year-long research project which we called ‘Age Friendly Living Ecosystem’. It was funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute (SUII). Our question was: how can we design places and spaces, both inside and outside, which are welcoming, comfortable, safe, accessible, affordable and, importantly, fun for people of all generations?
The intention was to start work in early 2020, with workshops in community venuees throughout Scotland. But we all know what happened in March 2020. As a result of Covid and lockdown, we had to move the whole project online. The obvious and very real downside was not being able to spend time with people of all ages in the places that they use and are important to them. The unplanned benefit was that we were able to include people from across the world in the online workshops, and the result was some very rich cross-cultural conversations. Once again, there was an unexpected finding. We were surprised by how many people talked about their sensory experience of places: how important sounds and smells were.
The whole idea of multigenerational places became very real to me this year. My daughter and my two grandsons came over from New Zealand. We visited the National Museum of Scotland; the Scottish Storytelling Centre; the Camera Obscura; the V&A in Dundee; and the Dundee Science Centre. Every one of them was multigenerational. There were babies, toddlers, groups from nurseries, and schoolchildren. There were art students sketching the exhibits. There were young people testing out their driving skills and reaction times. And there were adults of all ages, in family groups; in couples; and on their own. They were all looking and learning and playing and creating, sometimes together, and sometimes side by side.
As far as I understand, all of these are fully accessible, but we can’t avoid the affordability angle: three of those places were free; the other two charge, and we were fortunate to be able to afford them.
We chose the title ‘Multigenerational Places’ for a reason. We thought it was important to emphasise that places should be for everyone. But I would like to reclaim the real meaning of ‘intergenerational’, not least because I love the acronym of the Intergenerational National Network, INN. An inn is somewhere that is warm and welcoming for everyone; a place for travellers and for people in the local community; a place where people are fed and looked after. Perhaps it is time to find a different word for projects involving cute kids and care homes?
All images courtesy of Pat Scrutton.
About the Author
Pat Scrutton has a background in community development. She retired in 2009, but continues to co-ordinate the Intergenerational National Network in Scotland. In recent years, she has also become involved in a number of research projects related to active ageing and ageing in place, always from an intergenerational perspective, with the Universities of Dundee, Stirling and Glasgow, and Heriot-Watt University.