Sarah is Clarion's first Age Friendly Community Manager and recently coordinated a cross-Group strategy into age friendly approaches to communities. With a background in social innovation, she is driven by exploring new ways of tackling challenges faced by an ageing population and has led on a number of new programmes for Clarion which put resident's voices at the heart of projects. These include designing and delivering a pop-up innovation lab programme; the sector's first Homeshare scheme; and a tenancy sustainment programme which sees residents training other residents in setting up their first tenancy.
Sarah also chairs the Age Friendly Communities Network, set up to bring together HA's from across the sector to ensure our communities support residents across a lifetime to age well. Sarah was involved in Housing LIN's inaugural Future Leaders programme, which brought together emerging leaders from across the sector to discuss best practice and develop new skills to build their careers. She found the programme incredibly valuable, giving her the space and tools to reflect on her practice and is keen to share her thoughts at this years' conference.