How can we ensure that the rights of people with disabilities continue to be protected as they grow older? The GOLD project presents six policy recommendations for more inclusive, coordinated and person-centred policies across Europe.
People with disabilities are living longer than ever before. This reflects important progress in medicine, social policy and human rights, but it also brings new challenges for European welfare and support systems.
Too often, however, public policies continue to address disability and ageing as separate issues, despite the fact that these two dimensions increasingly intersect throughout people’s lives. This separation can create gaps in services and support, particularly as people’s needs change or become more complex with age.
Against this background, the GOLD project has published “Getting Older with Disabilities in Europe: Towards Inclusive, Rights-Based and Life-Course Policies”, a new set of policy recommendations developed by AGE Platform Europe as part of the European project GOLD – Getting Older with a Disability.
Six priorities for change
Research carried out within GOLD, involving organisations from six EU Member States, identified a number of common challenges faced by people ageing with disabilities. These include inequalities that accumulate over the life course, fragmented services, gaps in access to appropriate healthcare and increasing pressure on families and informal carers.
Building on these findings, the report identifies six priority areas for action:
- Adopt a life-course approach to ageing with disabilities, anticipating age-related changes from mid-adulthood onwards and integrating ageing into disability policies, prevention and health promotion.
- Ensure continuity of rights beyond age thresholds, so that access to services and support is based on individual needs rather than chronological age.
- Embed person-centred “life projects” as a policy standard, enabling people with disabilities to define their aspirations, preferences and support needs and ensuring that these plans evolve with them throughout their lives.
- Break down silos between disability, ageing and healthcare systems, promoting integrated governance, shared care pathways and multidisciplinary coordination.
- Invest in a skilled and supported workforce and recognise informal carers, through appropriate training, information, emotional support and respite services.
- Create inclusive environments that sustain autonomy and participation, including accessible housing and services, flexible community-based support and accessible and affordable assistive technologies.
Rights should not diminish with age
At the heart of the GOLD recommendations is a clear principle: growing older should not mean losing rights, support or opportunities to make choices about one’s own life.
This requires moving beyond systems organised around separate categories and rigid age thresholds towards policies that accompany people throughout their lives, supporting continuity, self-determination, independent living and participation.
The recommendations also highlight the importance of strengthening the protection of the rights of older people with disabilities at European and international level. In particular, the report calls for support for an inclusive UN Convention on the rights of older persons that explicitly recognises the intersection between ageing and disability.
The GOLD policy recommendations are therefore not only the result of the work carried out by the project. They are also a call to action for policymakers, service providers, professionals and civil society organisations to ensure that longer lives are accompanied by continuity of rights, meaningful choices, autonomy and full participation in society.
Read and download the GOLD Policy Recommendations and discover the six priority areas for building a more inclusive approach to ageing with a disability in Europe.
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