What is SHAPE?
SHAPE – the Suitable Housing for an Ageing Population Evidence Exchange – is a UK-wide five-year programme focused on turning evidence into practical action to improve homes and communities as we age.
A partnership between the Housing LIN and the Vivensa Foundation (opens new window), SHAPE brings together people and organisations across housing, health, social care and communities to help put evidence into practice, strengthen collaboration and support 'age-inclusive' approaches that can make a real difference to people’s lives.
Why SHAPE?
The evidence is clear. As highlighted by the Older People’s Housing Taskforce and successive HAPPI reports, age-friendly homes and placemaking is central to our health, wellbeing and ability to live independently.
We already know a great deal about the kinds of homes, adaptations, technologies and community approaches that can support people to age well. But evidence does not always translate into consistent change on the ground.
SHAPE is designed to help close that gap.
SHAPE builds on the substantial evidence that already exists, while the £3m SHAPE Challenge Fund will generate new learning through selected implementation and locality-based practice in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. The programme will explore how evidence about what works can be applied in real-world settings, support place-based leadership and share the learning to enable wider adoption.
Our aim
SHAPE aims to support the implementation, testing, scaling of, and building evidence-informed approaches that improve the housing choices and at home services for an ageing population.
Over five years, the programme will generate practical learning about what works, what age-friendly interventions help change happen and how successful approaches can be coproduced, sustained and adopted elsewhere.
Ultimately, SHAPE will contribute to a future where everyone can make informed choices about ‘living in a place they can call home’, where ageing well and live healthy, fulfilling lives in homes and communities that support independence, dignity and connection.
What makes SHAPE different?
There is no shortage of research into the relationship between housing, health and wellbeing. What is often missing is the ability to translate that knowledge into sustained, real-world change.
SHAPE puts evidence into action.
It will bring together lived experiences, evidence, practical resources, local implementation, cross-sector collaboration and shared learning so that organisations can move from knowing what needs to change to understanding how to make that change happen including the resources, investment and conditions needed to support delivery.
How SHAPE works
SHAPE brings together four connected areas of activity:
Knowledge and evidence
Curating, refreshing and sharing evidence, practical tools, examples and learning to make it easier for organisations to understand and apply what works.
SHAPE sites
Working intensively with selected local partnerships to implement and test evidence-informed approaches in real-world settings, understand what enables change and share the learning more widely.
Leadership and collaboration
Bringing together people across housing, health, social care and communities to strengthen community relationships, break down silos and support the leadership needed to turn evidence into action at a local level.
Advisory and programme influence
Drawing on expertise from across the UK through the SHAPE Advisory Group and wider stakeholders to challenge and inform the programme, identify emerging learning and help influence national, regional/mayoral and/or local policies, strategies and plans and demonstrate practical impact.
Knowledge and evidence
A key part of SHAPE is making existing evidence easier to find, understand and use in practice.
The programme will develop and curate practical knowledge, tools and resources across a range of themes relating to housing and ageing. Its initial areas of focus are care-ready housing, intergenerational housing and communities, and accessible design, adaptations and technology.
Over the course of the programme, further work will explore areas including community-led housing, regeneration and upgrading of existing housing stock, new models of housing with care and support, the next generation of care homes, and housing affordability.
From local action to wider change
Through the SHAPE Challenge Fund, selected local partnerships will receive funding to help turn evidence into action and become SHAPE sites.
The sites will provide opportunities to understand not only whether an approach works, but also how it can be implemented successfully – including co-designing community involvement and forging new partnerships, leadership, resources and local conditions needed to make change happen.
Learning from the sites will be shared through the SHAPE Exchange so that organisations across the UK can benefit from their experience and transfer knowledge.
Building on what we already know
SHAPE builds on the Housing LIN's established work to improve housing for an ageing population, including programmes such as HAPPI and TAPPI, while creating a stronger focus on implementation and practical change.
With health and adult social care reform, it also reflects a growing recognition across the UK that housing has a vital role to play in prevention, healthy ageing, placemaking, independent living and the future sustainability of health and social care economies.
By connecting evidence with action, SHAPE will help develop practical approaches that can improve people's lives locally and inform wider change.