Online resilience course for older people
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| Brian Dooney, course director. |
An online resilience course for Kildare people feeling vulnerable or isolated after their experiences during the pandemic gets under way today, writes Brian Byrne. The four sessions on Mondays between now and 4 April will be replicated in a second course on four Thursdays beginning 31 March.
The initiative is at the request of Older Voices Kildare and is being delivered by Age and Opportunity Ireland. "It is for anyone trying to re-engage with the way things were, or get back into activities," says the course director Brian Dooney, "to build a bit of resilience in getting back to a normal life."
The course was originally set up for people preparing for transitions in their lives, such as retirement. "It was developed to help people tap into the resources that they have within themselves to deal with such changes. When Older Voices Kildare approached us, it was because there was a felt need out there from the pandemic to help people build resilience."
The format is based on encouraging people to take a look at some of the challenges that they have faced in their lives up to now and what lessons they may have learned from those, and what resources they have built up within themselves. "We do that not to dwell on the past, but to see what we have learned which would benefit not only the present but in relation to the future."
Brian Dooney says that people have many resources within themselves that they don't always recognise, often simple things which may have helped them cope with situations in the past. "A lot of people forget those resources that they have built up, and at some level they lie dormant. And while we can all reflect on things by ourselves, there's a real value in doing it with other people. Hearing the experiences of others can trigger sparks of connections with our own."
A core element of the concept is that 'life is our own textbook', and that when it comes to resilience there is more than one route to get to the destination. "If one person has discovered something that serves them well, and shares that with others, we find that each of us have different resilience building blocks, which can often include connections with other people." A key tenet is that resilience is not about 'toughing up and going it alone', but that staying connected with people and community generally brings a much better outcome. "It is a personal resource, but it is also a collective resource, which can be accessed by getting involved in the community."
The original design of the course was for in-person group discussions, but the pandemic forced a shift to use of Zoom, and for now that's the way the delivery is still being managed. "Ideally we would prefer to be back with in-person activity, as we had been doing for a year and a half before Covid arrived. But the pandemic turned out to be one of the biggest life transitions that many people had to face and we're still running it online in what could be called a 'bridging' phase until we get the go-ahead to get back into the in-person sessions."
That said, Brian Dooney says he was surprised at how well participants adapted to taking part in the course online, and they actually missed the contacts when it finished. "I suppose the lesson is that we are very adaptable, and there was also an advantage of Zoom that we were able to bring together people from different parts of the country which we could never have done in-person." Though Brian does say that the positive element of give and take which can happen in a room is not as easy to achieve online.
Feedback from the course since it was inaugurated has been very positive, with participants generally saying they really enjoyed hearing from other people's experiences. Ideally 12-15 participants on a course is considered the ideal, although Age and Opportunity have run some with 20 or more. The course sessions are from 10am-12 noon each day. Those interested in the course should contact Fiona at engage@ageandopportunity.ie, providing email and postal address.
Age and Opportunity was established in 1988 to build positivity around ageing, and is very much involved in encouraging older people to participate in arts, sport, and other activities of personal development. All part of championing the creativity and value of older people and combating stereotypes and negative views of ageing.
