The empowering potential of activating seniors to involve them in participatory planning of urban space in the Czech Republic

Background: Currently, the aging population is an increasingly discussed phenomenon. Therefore, it is beneficial to pay attention to new trends and innovative methods and techniques to enable the activation of seniors. The aim of this text is to reflect on the empowering functions of participatory reminiscence techniques, and the creation of future scenarios in the context of social work.Methods: The aim of the research work with a group of senior women was to interpret the narratives of the communication partners in relation to capturing memories, the experience of the present and the vision of the future with the use of an innovative implementation of two participatory techniques - reminiscence and the creation of future scenarios.Results: The results indicate a need for social workers to achieve greater involvement of seniors at two levels: (1) at the level of individual work with clients (seniors in this case), where the results point to the need to emphasize the creation of opportunities for engagement of (not only) seniors in participatory activities, and (2) at the macro level of work, where there is a clear societal demand for change, leading to an increase in the degree of social cohesion.Conclusions: The research showed that reminiscence and the creation of future scenarios of elderly women manifested themselves in a wide range of empowering functions, that can be organised into purpose/goal, result, functioning, and functionality.