“Did you win this week, Mum?”
It’s a simple question, but it carries so much. It tells you that something small, a game, a session, a moment, has become part of someone’s week, something to look forward to, something that matters.
At Open Age, that’s what we see every day. Older people finding their way back into connection, into rhythm, into spaces where they feel they belong. For many, these sessions are not just activities they are lifelines, dotted gently through the week. A reason to leave the house. A place where someone notices if you’re not there.
Our work is rooted in prevention, in the often unseen work of helping people stay well as they get older. That might look like a Zumba class, but just as often it looks like someone sitting on a sofa, building back the confidence to be in the room. That step crossing the threshold, being there is as significant as any physical activity.
Some of our participants might look as though they could walk into a mainstream class, but they wouldn’t stay. Not because they don’t want to, but because those spaces aren’t built for them. We design everything with care. Considerations for frailty, health conditions, confidence, pace, all of it is thought through. Our teachers take the time to understand the individual in front of them, to adapt, to notice.
And in many ways, the work of Kensington and Chelsea Social Council (KCSC) is also prevention. It creates the spaces for organisations like ours to come together, to speak to commissioners, to sit around tables where we can influence change. KCSC is often in the same meetings, advocating collectively for more preventative services to be delivered by the third sector because we do it so well.
Having been here just over a year, I’ve come to understand just how critical KCSC is as an anchor for organisations like ours. Open Age has worked alongside them for years, but experiencing it firsthand is something different. The regular bulletin that keeps you connected, the training that sharpens your thinking, the meetings that bring the sector together and perhaps most importantly, the moments when you’re facing a question with no clear answer, and KCSC is where you turn.
KCSC holds that wider ecosystem together. It connects us, strengthens us, and gives us somewhere to land whether that’s through practical support, shared learning, or simply the reassurance that we are not working in isolation.
Open Age is an amazing charity but we can’t do this work in isolation, we need the network that KCSC provides as our members need the one we provide.