Dr Lyn Phillipson has dedicated most of her career to creating age-friendly environments.
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The award-winning public health academic from the University of Wollongong’s School of Health and Society hopes a new role she has scored will help her “build more capacity for age-friendly initiatives around the world”.
Dr Phillipson has been appointed as an Age-friendly Mentor by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Federation of Aging.
She is one of only 20 people worldwide to be named as a mentor under the Age-friendly Environments Mentoring Programme (MENTOR-AFE), established to foster leadership development in people striving to make their communities more responsive to people of all ages.
“This is the first time they have run the program, so to be an inaugural mentor is a real honour,” Dr Phillipson said.
As part of the 12-month distance mentoring program, she will provide guidance and support to her mentee Amela Fočić, helping her develop the skills she needs to advance her work on age-friendly environments.
Ms Fočić works for the Swiss Red Cross and lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she is working towards making the city of Tuzla more age friendly.
“If possible, I would like to share with Amela the importance and benefits of working with older people and making sure that the approach is collaborative and participatory,” Dr Phillipson said.
“I would also particularly like to support Amela to think about how the project can be dementia friendly as well as age friendly.
“Creating age-friendly environments is an important global issue due to the aging of our populations. It is critical that those embarking on this type of work are supported to apply what we know from the evidence in practice.”
A National Health and Medical Research Council-Australian Research Council Dementia Research Fellow, Dr Phillipson also leads UOW’s Dementia Friendly Communities and Organisations project.
The project funded by the Global Challenges Program is an interdisciplinary project to increase public understanding of dementia and reduce the fear, stigma and social exclusion associated with living with dementia.
As part of the project, Dr Phillipson and her team have been working with Kiama Municipal Council, the Kiama community and Dementia Australia to make Kiama Australia’s first dementia-friendly community.
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
