Empowering Senior Voices: turning lived experience into action
A new report from the Empowering Senior Voices project shows what can happen when older adults are given the tools and opportunity to investigate their own communities, identify what matters to them and bring their lived experience directly into conversations about change.
The final report, Empowering Senior Voices: Inclusive Civic Innovation and Healthy Ageing through the Our Voice Methodology, brings together the experiences, priorities and recommendations of older adults participating in the City North project.
Using the Our Voice methodology, participants became researchers of their own communities. During neighbourhood Discovery Walks, they used digital tools to capture geo-tagged photographs, voice notes and observations about their experiences of moving through Melbourne’s City North precinct. They then worked together to analyse what they had found, identify shared priorities, map relevant stakeholders and take those insights into civic dialogue.
The result is more than a record of what older adults observed. It demonstrates a practical approach to turning lived experience into evidence and creating pathways for older people to participate in decisions affecting their communities.
Seeing the city through experienced eyes
The City North precinct spans parts of Melbourne City, Carlton, North Melbourne and Parkville. As the area grows and its population ages, older residents continue to experience challenges including social isolation, digital exclusion and barriers to age-friendly infrastructure.
Empowering Senior Voices set out to understand these experiences from the perspective of older adults themselves.
Rather than researchers deciding what mattered and asking participants to respond, the Our Voice methodology enabled participants to document their own experiences of moving through and participating in their community.
Their Discovery Walks identified themes spanning infrastructure and maintenance, regulation and enforcement, safety and accessibility, community engagement and education, urban design, sustainability and green infrastructure, and equity and inclusion.
These observations show how seemingly small features of the urban environment can influence whether older adults feel confident, safe and able to participate in community life.
Uneven surfaces and cluttered footpaths, for example, were not viewed only as maintenance issues. Participants described how navigating hazards could create anxiety about falling and make people question whether they wanted to come into the city at all.
As one participant observed:
“The pathway was even - and suddenly we had this unevenness...”
From lived experience to civic dialogue
Gathering lived experience was not the end point.
Participants moved from documenting their experiences to collectively analysing their findings, identifying priorities and considering who could help create change.
On 12 November 2025, a civic briefing at RMIT University brought project participants and stakeholders together. Older adults presented findings from their Discovery Walks and used the key themes they had identified to put forward suggestions for change through civic dialogue.
The process generated practical recommendations and potential pathways forward across the issues participants had identified. It also highlighted the importance of making it easier for older adults to understand what is happening in their communities, know who is responsible and participate in the decisions affecting them.
As another participant reflected:
“It’s not that people aren’t trying— it’s just that each department seems to work in their own lane.”
Participants proposed stronger two-way communication, more accessible civic information, community-based information channels and clearer pathways for residents to raise issues and participate in local initiatives.
Experience the research
The final report brings together the findings from Empowering Senior Voices, but there is much more to explore through the voices, photographs and places behind those findings.
Walk the precinct through their eyes
Through the interactive City North map, you can retrace participants’ Discovery Walks and explore the observations they captured in place.
See the neighbourhood through their eyes
The Neighbourhood Photo Stories combine participants’ photographs and recorded reflections, providing an opportunity to experience the precinct through their eyes and reflect on your own experience of community.
Eight priority themes emerged
The project’s posters and visual resources provide another window into the research, showing how individual experiences developed into shared themes, priorities and opportunities for change.
From insight to action
Across the report, a consistent theme emerges: creating more inclusive communities requires collaboration between older adults, government, researchers, community organisations and other stakeholders.
Participants identified opportunities ranging from safer and more accessible public spaces to better civic communication, community-led initiatives, greener urban environments and more inclusive approaches to public information and wayfinding.
The civic briefing also created an opportunity for participants and stakeholders to consider what could happen next, turning observations into practical recommendations and potential pathways for change.
This reflects an important principle behind the work of Shaping Connections: inclusion is not achieved by designing for older adults and asking for feedback afterwards.
Older adults bring knowledge and lived experience that can contribute directly to how communities, services and environments are understood and designed.
City North: Empowering Senior Voices In Action demonstrates what this can look like in practice: a pathway from lived experience, to evidence, to collective interpretation, to civic dialogue and action.
Most importantly, it places older adults where they belong in these conversations: not simply as research participants or recipients of services, but as contributors to the decisions shaping the communities in which they live.
Explore Empowering Senior Voices
Read the final report to explore the findings, recommendations and pathways for change identified through the City North project.
Explore the Empowering Senior Voices Program to learn more about the Our Voice methodology, the City North project and how lived experience is being translated into action.
