Step 1.2 – Set up a steering group
Establishing an age friendly steering or advisory group can be useful to set priorities and maintain the focus needed to drive a plan forward.
How to set up a steering group
To set up a steering group you could:
- call for nominations
- advertise for people to nominate themselves
- use existing networks, including the groups you’ve identified that you could align with, to identify potential champions
- use a combination of these approaches.
Who to include
A steering group should include (or have access to) a wide spectrum of the community, including:
- older people
- disabled people
- elected members of council
- relevant council staff (including those working in community development, parks, transport, urban planning, recreation and libraries)
- community members from relevant organisations
- iwi representatives
- members of other ethnicity groups specific to your community.
Diverse representation is important but also give some thought to the skills that you’ll need in this group to help guide your work. It is important that your group has the right expertise, leadership and that members are committed to the project for the long term.
“We chose a skill group rather than a representative group of people. Not all our steering group knew a whole lot about age friendly but they were extremely committed and performed really well as a team.”
Nick Chester, Hamilton City Council
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