The Gosford community respects and supports its older citizens and values them as active community volunteers, mentors and teachers.

Gosford City Council provides a range of services and initiatives designed to encourage older residents to have an active lifestyle and improve their health and wellbeing.

Positive Ageing Strategy

In NSW under the Health Ageing Framework there are six key areas for Government action. They are:

1. Attitudes to ageing and older people.
2. Participation in community life.
3. Making your own decisions.
4. Supportive neighbourhoods and communities.
5. Health, accommodation, care and support.
6. Making the best use of resources.

Therefore the challenge for Gosford City Council is to produce a plan that will take into account the above issues in creating a better community for older people to live. As preliminary research for the area states (quote Professor Bellew's Report) "Local government is in a unique position to recognise, understand and respond to the needs of the growing older population."

In considering these issues, Professor Bellew's Report recommends 12 Strategic Principles for Gosford City's Ageing Strategy. These are:

1. Positive Ageing is Everybody’s Business – a whole of Council approach.
2. Evidence-informed, effective and efficient policies and services with a commitment to monitoring, evaluating and transparency in the reporting of leading performance indicators for positive ageing
3. A commitment to excellence in communication, consultation and inclusion of the community in planning and decision-making processes for Positive Ageing
4. Building on Gosford City Council’s existing strengths and partnerships
5. An integrated and holistic approach through Integrated Local Area Planning (ILAP)
6. A population approach to service delivery and a reduction of unequal service access, delivery, impacts and outcomes for reasons that are avoidable or unfair
7. A positive orientation to life-long contributions: a whole-of-life approach, never too early, never too late; ageing is an opportunity
8. Increased mature age participation in the Council labor force and more widely
9. Balancing government and individual responsibility sensibly with the key positive ageing choices being made easy choices for the whole community
10. Promotion of community inclusiveness, strengths and resilience and prevention of illness and chronic disease risk factors
11. Commitment to working in strategic partnerships including an increased engagement with the private sector; and
12. Multidisciplinary and collaborative service delivery: the community receives excellent, joined-up services free of "red tape"

Download the Positive Ageing Strategy

The full positive ageing strategy document (PDF File, 7.4kb) is also available for download.