About Intimacy Bank
Intimacy Bank is an innovative approach to promoting health, wellbeing and interpersonal connection through recognition of the ways intimacy matters and changes as we age. The Bank centres around a ‘vault’ of wisdom and evidence related to intimacy and ageing that will be shared with service providers, older people and people living with dementia.
The Vault
The processes for filling the Intimacy Bank vault involves learning from service providers, researchers, older people and people living with dementia. While multiple perspectives are often gathered in research and consultation, the voices of older people are rarely privileged in the resulting resources and other outputs. This lack of first-person accounts contributes to the failure to adequately address intimacy as a critical aspect of health and wellbeing.
To bridge this gap, the resource development for Intimacy Bank is being led by older people, including people living with dementia. Their voices are privileged and one of the powerful outcomes is that the focus has broadened beyond (hetero)sexuality and sex. Topics older people want addressed include:
Content related to these and other topics will form the basis of Train the Trainer workshops for older people and service providers. Older people attending workshops will be given Intimacy Bank Books and invited to develop their own wellbeing plan; knowledge about intimacy is conceptualised as wealth.
To bridge this gap, the resource development for Intimacy Bank is being led by older people, including people living with dementia. Their voices are privileged and one of the powerful outcomes is that the focus has broadened beyond (hetero)sexuality and sex. Topics older people want addressed include:
- Skin hunger
- Desire
- Dating (online and face to face)
- Pleasure
- Masculinity & age related erectile decline
- Power relations - gender roles and expectations
- Disease, disability and shifting intimate relationships
- Body image
- Historical trauma
- Negotiating consent
- Sexual safety - sexual assault
- LGBTI pathologised sexuality and intimate relations
- Connection and the life of a single person.
Content related to these and other topics will form the basis of Train the Trainer workshops for older people and service providers. Older people attending workshops will be given Intimacy Bank Books and invited to develop their own wellbeing plan; knowledge about intimacy is conceptualised as wealth.
Glenda Powell Travelling Fellow
Each year the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) hosts the Glenda Powell Travelling Fellowship, honouring AAG’s first female president. The Fellow focuses on a hot topic, which this year is Intimacy and Ageing. The 2019 Fellow is Dr Catherine Barrett, the Founder and Director of The OPAL Institute. As part of the Fellowship, Catherine will be working with AAG members in a number of states/territories to explore their perspectives on the Intimacy Bank approach and focus.
Workshops and presentations
The first workshop with Elders is being held in Perth in collaboration with GRAI. The workshop will include 18 LGBTI Elders and their perspectives on intimacy are invaluable. A presentation was also delivered to 36 members of the Australian Association of Gerontology, Perth.
In the media
We are grateful to the journalists and organisations that help spread the word about the work we do - you help us create awareness of the need for change. Special thanks to the Australian Journal of Dementia Care for this front cover feature and story on what Intimacy Bank means to people living with dementia.
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