Australian Association of Gerontology - 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, and in 2019 the topic was Intimacy and Ageing and the Fellow was Dr Catherine Barrett, Founder and Director of The OPAL Institute. As part of the Fellowship, Catherine worked with AAG members in a number of states/territories to explore their perspectives on the Intimacy Bank approach and focus. The Fellowship also involved meeting with the Department of Health in Canberra to speak about sexual rights. 

Workshops and presentations 

Workshops were hosted with 30 AAG members in Adelaide and 36 in Perth. A very special workshop was also facilitated with older LGBTI in Perth, in collaboration with GRAI. The workshop was attended by 18 older LGBTI people, who were asked to share their perspectives on what intimacy meant to them as an older LGBTI person. Their responses were documented on napkins and then laid out on the venue floor to prompt discussion (see below) 

A particularly moving aspect of the LGBTI workshop was one participant who wrote that intimacy to her meant 'sexual touch within a relationship, not necessarily with feelings of love' (see bottom left). After discussion the participant removed her napkin (bottom right) and said that she now realises that intimacy is broad and she wished that she had that knowledge as a younger woman. 

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 means to people living with dementia.