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ESCC Updates November 2018
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Building sustainable assisted transportation options .
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If you are an older adult or someone who works to support seniors, you know how critical it is that they have access to affordable and appropriate transportation options.
Since ESCC’s first forum in 2000, transportation stakeholders have come together to create innovative solutions to address the transportation needs of our aging population. This collaborative approach has produced great advances in senior transportation, with ESCC contributions including the publication of a Volunteer Driver Program Toolkit, facilitation of a coordinated shared service model using volunteer drivers in Edmonton, research on ride scheduling software, and more.
ESCC’s approach has focused on promoting community engagement and fostering collaborations and partnerships.
Starting in late 2016 ESCC led a project to explore how best to build sustainable Assisted Transportation Service (ATS) capacity in Edmonton. Our goal was to gain a systems-level understanding of current transportation needs, demands, and capacity of organizations to respond.
Interviews conducted with more than 75 stakeholders who provide, rely on, or advocate for assisted transportation for seniors proved crucial to understanding the Edmonton context. These interviewees offered important insights into challenges seniors face in accessing services. They also identified barriers that limit ATS providers from growing as well as policies and practices that impact the affordability and sustainability of assisted transportation. Interviewees’ willingness to participate opened the door to questions that probed existing and potential opportunities for collaboration in transportation service delivery.
We invite you to learn more by reviewing the project report Building a Sustainable Assisted Transportation Service: A Collaborative Approach. We’ve also developed materials summarizing the lessons learned and promising practices.
This project has expanded ESCC’s knowledge of the issues surrounding assisted transportation services and laid the groundwork for continued networking, collaborating and partnering to find solutions that sustain safe, affordable, appropriate and accessible assisted transportation options for seniors.
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Being smarter with our community initiatives .
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Being Smarter With Our Community Initiatives
ESCC Seasonal Gathering and Conversation Cafe
December 6, 1 - 3 p.m.
North Glenora Community Hall (13535 109 A Ave.)
Being able to respond to shifting landscapes allows program interventions to be adapted so they can be more impactful and effective in reaching a collective goal.
Join us to hear how local organizations have shown adaptability and how work being done in the seniors sector could contribute to a city-wide initiative.
Learnings from local initiatives
The organizations involved in the Pan-Edmonton Group Addressing Social Isolation of Seniors (PEGASIS) initiative will share their learnings around how their projects changed to respond to identified and evolving needs.
Smart Cities Challenge
Representatives from the City of Edmonton will discuss Edmonton’s proposal for the Smart Cities Challenge. For Edmonton, being a Smart City is about more than just adopting new technologies and encouraging innovation. Together, we create and nurture a resilient, livable and workable community that rises to the challenges we face today, provides our residents with a joyful experience and embraces the opportunities of tomorrow. The City encourages all individuals, industries and academic sectors to work as partners in our open innovation ecosystem and will share how your ideas will influence the City's final proposal in Infrastructure Canada's Smart Cities Challenge.
RSVP online by December 3.
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Speaking up for seniors' transportation needs .
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As the proportion of older adults in Edmonton grows, services and infrastructure require revisiting to ensure our approaches still work. The recent reviews of DATS service and bus routes and schedules present an opportunity to rethink our approach. To ensure our older citizens can participate in city life and maintain connections to what they value, our public transportation system must ensure accessibility so no one is barred by mobility or resources.
In September and October there were several opportunities for ESCC and ESCC members to tell the City of Edmonton how their decisions on key transportation files will impact Edmonton seniors. ESCC mobilized member organizations to attend the Disabled Adult Transit Service (DATS) review and encouraged attendance at Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) Bus Network Redesign sessions to provide feedback on amended routes.
DATS Service Review
ESCC’s Executive Director Sheila Hallett spoke at the October 15 City Council Executive Committee meeting from a perspective of encouraging DATS to be age-friendly. Current system challenges that have been shared with ESCC suggest some enhancements are needed. These include: long wait times for pick-up and drop-off, long rides in the vehicle, not being allowed to bring parcels on rides, the cost of alternative forms of transportation, and knowing what options are available.
Redesign of ETS routes will likely push more mobility-challenged seniors to DATS, and this is an opportunity to look at enhancing the DATS service and potentially aligning with first/last kilometre connect supports for the buses to better meet the needs of a growing demographic.
Several ESCC member organizations also spoke at the meeting and identified challenges and opportunities:
- Mary Whale from the Edmonton Southside Primary Care Network reported that the 17-page application form is very time consuming to complete. She also noted that clients may end up waiting for a long time at the clinic after their appointment which is difficult for some clients, especially if they use oxygen and their travel tank almost runs out because they are away from home longer than planned.
- Bonnie Dobbs with the Medically At-Risk Driver Centre spoke about the pros/cons of the DATS model and provided some ideas used in other cities that meet needs of medically at-risk clients.
- A board member of Drive Happiness spoke about how many of their clients used to use DATS but require more support and assistance from a driver than DATS can provide. Drive Happiness can provide this extra support and would be happy to collaborate with DATS.
- Salima Saadat from the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers spoke about the language challenges that prevent immigrant and refugee seniors from being able to use the DATS service. Many don’t even know about the service and isolation is a big issue in the community of immigrant and refugee seniors.
Bus network redesign
The City’s redesign of bus routes will impact seniors who rely on public transportation, potentially creating longer walks to bus stops and limiting access to buses in neighbourhoods that used to have through-routes.
The City set up stakeholder workshops for organizations to give feedback on the proposed new bus routes. We informed our members of these workshops and encouraged ESCC members to attend. ESCC staff also attended and shared our perspectives to highlight the importance of taking into account the needs of older citizens in route design.
ESCC will continue to share the perspectives of our stakeholders and encourage collaborative approaches in meeting the needs of older people.
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Energizing Age Friendly Edmonton .
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Since launching Age Friendly Edmonton (AFE) 2.0 in June 2018, the Edmonton Seniors Coordinating Council and the City of Edmonton have been recruiting Edmontonians who are passionate about building an age-friendly city to form the core group that will guide Age Friendly Edmonton’s actions over the next few years.
Members of the Leadership Table will advise on strategic priorities in four Action Hubs: Reducing Ageism, Supporting Aging in Place, Promoting Intergenerational Connections, and Responding to Diversity. They are leaders, advocates, and organizers in our community, and their innovative thinking and commitment to change will guide the next phase of the initiative.
The Leadership Table is co-chaired by Dr. Sharon Barker and Dr. Anwar Haq. Joining them are Elaine Betchinski, Jacquie Eales, Sheena Jaffer, Johnna Lowther, Bauni Mackay, Aleem Rajani, Eric Storey, and Dr. Salima Suleman. Edmonton City Council is represented by Councillors Moe Banga and Andrew Knack and the Government of Alberta is represented by Carol Ching.
Transition Ambassadors who were involved with AFE during the first five years of the initiative contribute a valuable historical perspective. Grace Maier, Karen McDonald, Mary Jane McLaughlin, and Susan Morrissey will be called upon by Action Hub Champions and our Leadership Table as needed to share their knowledge and expertise.
The Action Hub Changemakers have drive and passion and they are at the heart of the initiative. They will play a key role in making Edmonton a better place to be for all ages. Changemakers will contribute to testing innovative ideas to promote positive perceptions of aging and celebrate the contributions of Edmonton seniors. They will nurture partnerships that promote intercultural sharing and help Edmontonians to better understand what is needed to age in place. Changemakers come from all walks of life including seniors, youth, academics, healthcare professionals and those who work in the senior sector. Becca Barrington, Ratna Basappa, Kim Buehler, Melissa Carvalho, Nick Chrapko, Dr. Bonnie Dobbs, Margaret Dorey, Beth Mansell, Nicole Smith, and Mary Whale have committed to be Changemakers in the Action Hubs.
AFE is still recruiting people to join the Action Hubs. If you’re passionate about reducing ageism, supporting seniors to age in place, encouraging diversity, and promoting intergenerational connections, contact Caroline at agefriendly@seniorscouncil.net or 780-423-5635 ext. 4.
We’re thrilled with the wealth of experience and enthusiasm of the people who have signed on to AFE 2.0. Learn more about the organizational structure of AFE 2.0 and about the people bringing innovative ideas and fresh perspectives that will energize and inform AFE’s work.
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Seniors sector food services workers connect .
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ESCC currently coordinates networks of outreach workers, senior centre program coordinators, and executive directors to help staff connect with colleagues and share information on common issues. Because of this experience, we were asked to facilitate an exploratory meeting of seniors sector food services staff.
In October, staff from GEF Seniors Housing, Canterbury Foundation, South East Edmonton Seniors Association, Mill Woods Seniors Association, SouthWest Edmonton Seniors Association, Sage Seniors Association, and Edmonton Meals on Wheels met for the first time to learn about each other’s operations, discuss common challenges, and share solutions and ideas.
Issues such as food safety during events, providing menu choices for people with dietary restrictions, staff turnover, managing kitchen volunteers, gauging how much food to buy and prepare, and introducing new menu items were discussed.
Representatives also discussed the challenge of rising food costs and sticking with budgets. While they were open to working together to achieve economies of scale by placing combined orders with food wholesalers for example, differences in payment processes and smaller centres not needing to place such large orders presented a challenge.
Attendees shared other ways they are managing food costs and enthusiastically shared information on opportunities to get excess food from other organizations to turn into meals at the centres through food rescue organizations such as Leftovers YEG.
The seniors centre staff mentioned that is was reassuring to hear that other centres have the same challenges and appreciated the opportunities to learn from each other about what has been successful at other organizations and get ideas for new things to try.
Representatives at the meeting agreed to share emails with each other to establish an informal network. Formal meetings are not planned at this point, but this may evolve in the future. If your organization was not able to attend the meeting but you want to join this network, contact Sheila Hallett to be added to the email list. Sheila can be reached at executivedirector@seniorscouncil.net or 780-423-5635 ext. 3.
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PEGASIS projects adapt to reach more seniors .
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One of the best things about the Pan-Canadian seniors social isolation projects is built-in permission to learn quickly from what’s not working and adjust program elements accordingly. Along with careful monitoring of activities, budgets and results, this ‘fail forward’ principle allows projects to make timely responses to seniors evolving needs. It also supports sharing of knowledge between the collective projects based out of nine Canadian cities.
The Pan-Edmonton Group Addressing Social Isolation of Seniors (PEGASIS) recently held our annual discussion with our funder, New Horizons for Seniors, to review what we’ve learned and adjusted for the benefit of our local seniors. Here are just a few examples:
Seniors’ Centre Without Walls is a free telephone-based program for seniors who are homebound or find it difficult to access regular community centres in person. Operated by Edmonton Southside Primary Care Network, the program has expanded, at no extra cost, to include additional participants living outside the originally-planned Edmonton area. This expansion shows how the program could be cost-effectively scaled across Alberta, growing the cooperative network of similar programs that exist across North America.
The Seniors Assisted Rides project (Drive Happiness) originally planned to invest significantly in specialized software, but they soon recognized that fancy computer applications were not the most direct route to better serving their riders’ needs. Instead, they have increased one-to-one personalized phone support for hundreds of new riders, and they have modified their ticket tracking system to improve convenience and efficiency.
The Specialized Outreach and Case Finding project has allowed Sage Seniors Association to enhance their existing individualized services to some of Edmonton’s most vulnerable and isolated seniors. Several quick responses to community-based needs resulted in resetting priorities beyond original plans. These include support groups for Bhutanese and Russian seniors, peer support for grandparent caregivers, and the seeding of several Men’s Sheds in Edmonton.
All seven PEGASIS core partner organizations have unique examples of adapting to emerging needs and community feedback. Collectively, the group has provided information, support, and/or interventions to over 5000 seniors from widely varied backgrounds and circumstances. We continue to diligently seek ways to sustain positive impacts beyond the April 2019 initial funding end date.
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