Voting Matters – Encouraging democratic participation of older people in care homes (360G-CR-1070058)

The Orders of St John Care Trust will work to support and enable older people living in their care homes to have their say in the next election. Whilst most people over the age of 65 are registered to vote, people who live in care homes are often forgotten when it comes to democratic participation as they are less able to vote either for reasons of physical or mental frailty or because they are less informed about the policy debates. It can be hard to stay connected to the outside world. This project will support 1,500 older people living in OSJCT care homes to believe their vote matters, empower them to connect, act and reengage with civic life. The approach to getting people engaged includes the production of promotional materials for residents and groups that will be an opportunity to talk about why voting matters. This pilot has great potential to increase and sustain older people’s participation in civil society at a time in their lives when they are often side lined and assumed to be incapable of involvement. For a relatively small investment materials and learning from this pilot could be replicated across the wider care home sector in the future amplifying the impact of this approach which will have an immediate impact whilst also achieving longer term outcomes for the connections between residents, staff and the wider community.