About Us
The Arun Neighbourhood Network (ANN) aims to:
- Promote health, well-being and independence for older people by listening to their needs and working with them to find a solution
- Enable older residents to lead more fulfilling lives by engaging with each other
- Prevent unplanned acute hospital admissions and reduce admissions to residential care
The ANN has four main roles:
- It is linking together the existing groups that offer services and activities to the older people of Arun, allowing them to meet regularly to: share information and facilities, discuss issues and solutions, develop services and work in partnership
- The ANN team is working together with existing groups and organisations, to support them and help them to expand. They can offer such services as:
- Help with funding applications
- Advice on how to keep the group going
- Opportunities to recruit volunteers
- Help with becoming more accessible
- Assistance to increase membership and services
- Business-based advice
- If there is a service required that is not currently available, then the team can work with members of the community to set up groups to provide that service. The team wants to encourage like-minded older people to come together to form more neighbourly communities, enabling them to use their skills and experiences to support one another.
- The team are setting up older people’s reference groups to allow older people to be involved in the decision-making process, and to ensure that their views are heard.
Any groups that offer services to older people within Arun can become members of the ANN: it does not matter how big or how small, what the purpose of it is or how often it meets. We want all groups to be involved.