Welcome to the Grand Years! I’m thrilled you found our site. After working in the aged care sector for nearly 15 years, responding to productivity commission, royal commissions, reviews of the Aged Care Act, developing strategies, pushing for improvement projects I was disheartened by the lack of meaningful change.

I’ve decided to step outside the traditional model and explore options for how people can age on their own terms.

If your plan is to move into the local aged care facility with your friends, this website may not be very useful to you. However, if moving into a nursing home is the last thing you want to do, my hope is that this site will provide you with helpful information and resources to explore and plan how you want to age.

This is not about quickly getting you home from hospital after an extended stay. The goal is for you to never find yourself in that situation. We want you to enjoy your later years in your own home, surrounded by people you have meaningful relationships with and engaging in activities you love.

Bodies age, that is a fact, but what can we be doing to ensure you still have a good quality of life? How can we design our homes to accommodate our needs? What care and support can we receive while living independently? How can we afford this lifestyle? And how do we ensure our wishes are respected?

I don’t believe anyone’s dream for their later years is an institutional setting, confined to a 18 metre square room bopping a balloon around for fun and never eating a soft egg or medium rare steak again (too risky to serve those in aged care in Australia, plus probably can’t even be afforded in the daily food budget).

My dream for my old age is to spend each day tending a beautiful garden, hosting long lunches for my family and friends, walks on the beach with my husband, and physically being healthy and strong enough to enjoy it all.

Here's to the Grand Years, where you can savor the life you've built, the family you've raised, and the friendships you've nurtured.

Gillian Chadwick

Founder, The Grand Years