Independent Living Assessment Australia (iLA) is on a mission to provide the information older people need, to realise and enjoy the upside of ageing. LiveUp is a free and impartial, online healthy ageing guide, that aims to energise and educate older people about the different wellbeing and reablement strategies that can help them maintain their independence and control over their choices as they get older. It currently focuses on improving older people’s awareness and access to low-risk assistive products, scaffolded with information about local social and exercise groups.

For a lot of older people in Australia, particularly those who prefer to speak a language other than English, it can be difficult to find accessible healthy ageing information. Knowledge about assistive products tends to be held by health professionals, and tied to medical, hospital or aged care systems, rather than understood and owned by older people themselves. This can entrench provider paternalism and ageism, instead of empowering older people with the confidence and autonomy to proactively self-advocate and lead conversations about their own care.

Join iLA as they share the results of 2023/2024 research conducted with nine established and emerging language groups, identifying common barriers and drivers for engaging with information about low-risk assistive products. iLA will discuss how this led to innovations in practice, including co-designing informational materials tailored exclusively for the Italian-speaking community. This presentation will evidence to policy makers and industry practitioners the importance of developing tailored approaches to protect and promote older people’s independence in multicultural Australia.