The ECU SAGE Futures Lab delivers a ‘social care’ approach to ageing across the life-course. Our research emphasises the role and value of the relationships in an individual’s social support network (formal and informal), including with the environment (physical and structural), as well as the use of technologies to mediate local, virtual and distant support networks.
This approach promotes the development of collaborative communities of care that extend people’s support networks at every age, with a particular emphasis on culture, diversity and inclusion.
Our vision for the SAGE Lab is inspired by the notion of ageing futures, which highlights the social revolution needed to re-imagine our relationship to ageing. As populations around the world are living longer, we need to change the way we think about and prepare for older age, including by combatting ageism, the biggest barrier to ageing well. In the Australian context, addressing ageing futures is also about understanding our increasingly diverse older population, with 1 in 3 people born overseas; a hugely diverse group with diverse needs, cross-cut by intersecting factors including gender, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, geography, and so on.
Our work contributes social science perspectives and methodologies to the creative and caring professions with a focus on cultural and linguistic diversity and the role of social support networks to wellbeing across the life-course.
We aim to develop effective evidence-based responses in four critical areas of need:
The ECU SAGE Futures Lab leads innovation in social and cultural care through collaborative research, consultancies, evaluation, the development of interventions, knowledge and good practice exchange.
Please contact us via the email address below or find out more about our team.
Email: sagelab@ecu.edu.au