Keeping the Doors Open: What do older people's community groups need to recover from the impact of Covid-19?
In June 2022, Age Scotland surveyed our community member groups to identify the main challenges they are facing and find out more about their experiences over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Almost a quarter of Age Scotland community member groups completed the survey, with 93 responses overall. The majority were from volunteer-led groups (80), with 13 staffed organisations responding (3 of which had volunteers as well).
Sadly, over the past two years more than 30 older people’s community groups in membership of Age Scotland have closed, and we know that others are struggling. Our report on the survey’s findings highlights what groups told us and makes recommendations about how we can support them going forward, including a number of calls to action.
The most common concerns for groups were:
- loss of members
- other operating costs
- rising energy bills
- securing core funding
