We are thinking about changing the brief slightly so that it doesn't necessarily have to be about youth interacting with elderly so that they are less lonely but we could leave it open so that the solution could be to do with neighbours or other elderly people.
We found some research that sometimes the most helpful thing for a lonely elderly is interacting with someone who is like them ie. if an elderly woman is widowed the most helpful thing is to have a role model and friend who is also widowed.
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This means the solution could potentially be more creative and look into other avenues. Youth interaction is only one way to help make elderly less lonely.
Update
After going back and forth about the benefits of keeping it specific rather than so broad and talking to Tim we've decided to stay with youth and elderly. Tim brought up the point that youth interacting with the elderly is a much more interesting topic than elderly interacting with the elderly. Also, it's important to be specific as it gives the designer a starting point and there are still a million solutions to this problem with a lot of creative potential.
