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Tools share impact of social isolation initiative.
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As part of ESCC’s commitment to scaling out the impact of the PEGASIS initiative through the Connecting Edmonton Seniors Extension, we developed communications that share the achievements and learnings of the initiative and provide resources to help identify and support isolated seniors.
Videos
A series of videos was produced to share the impact of what was achieved through PEGASIS. The series includes two videos that tell the story of the PEGASIS collaboration and three videos that feature seniors who became more connected to their communities as a result of PEGASIS.
Tools
ESCC developed practical tools that can help community members and health/helping professionals recognize signs of social isolation and connect isolated seniors with supports. We invite you to use the tools which include Connecting the Dots to Promote the Social Inclusion of Seniors, Conversation Starters, and the Get Connected Guide.
Backgrounder and partner profiles
These documents outline the accomplishments of the PEGASIS initiative and the partner projects.
Website
The Connecting Edmonton Seniors website includes information and resources that help seniors get connected including links to community connection points, events, and volunteer opportunities. For people who want to support seniors there is information about understanding social isolation and resources to help connect seniors. The website is home to all the materials developed such as the videos and tools.
Where to find the materials
All of the materials have been uploaded to a Google Drive folder as well as being available on the Connecting Edmonton Seniors website. We encourage you to use anything that has been developed to extend the impact of the PEGASIS and Connecting Edmonton Seniors initiatives even further!
If you have any questions contact Janelle Beblow, ESCC's communications coordinator, at janelle@seniorscouncil.net.
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Home supports collaboration is a promising model.
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As part of ESCC’s backbone role facilitating the Seniors Home Supports Program (SHSP), we oversee a yearly evaluation to assess how the program is working for seniors, the partners, the funders, and ESCC.
Key themes
Three key themes were identified through the 2019 evaluation:
- Growth in engagement: Services were provided to 1,940 unique individuals compared with 1,469 in the previous year, which is a growth of 30 per cent. Intakes increased 18 per cent and referrals grew by 24 per cent from 2018.
- Stability: The evaluator believes the SHSP was able to reach these significant growth milestones due in part to the stability of the program. Program staff at five of six district organizations, as well as backbone staff at the ESCC, remained consistent throughout the year. The types of services offered by SHSP also remained consistent throughout the year. These two elements of stability combined to allow collaborative capacities to strengthen and grow, and local best practices to emerge and stabilize.
- Maturity: This collaborative program has matured as shown by significant growth in service provision, the stabilization of staff, and progress in referral effectiveness and internal process control such as improvements in successful data collection.
Evaluation of the collaborative
2019 was the first year of operations after a 3-year pilot period. With more stable funding ensured, it was timely to look more closely at the attributes and impacts of the collaborative structure itself. Focus groups were conducted with the governance team and the operational team. Three levels of network activity were discussed: awareness, knowledge sharing and formal partnerships.
The evaluation of the SHSP collaborative showed limited cross-organizational awareness among the partners but strong ties related to knowledge sharing. Members of the governance and operational teams reported being able to lean on each other for important knowledge, and both groups identified their ESCC liaison as a key conduit for knowledge sharing.
The formal partnership level represents the most demanding level of collaboration and the collaborative demonstrated a remarkable adaptive capacity for shared decision-making and shared financial, human or physical resources. This is evidenced by program staff covering for each other when needed, enabled by the high level of trust and flexibility between staff and organizations.
We believe the experience of the SHSP collaborative could be leveraged as a model for other sector initiatives that could have a positive impact on the lives of Edmonton seniors. If you would like to learn more, contact Rosalie Gelderman, project coordinator, at rosalie@seniorscouncil.net.
We'll share more about how the program helps seniors in an upcoming issue.
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Building capacity through media/government relations.
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There is growing recognition in the nonprofit sector of how vital it is to be strategic in our communications with government and the media. Thanks to some recent training, we’re confident that seniors organizations and stakeholders will be better prepared to share their organization’s stories.
As the backbone organization and stewards of the funding for the Connecting Edmonton Seniors Extension (CES Extension), ESCC was responsible for ensuring that the impact of the initiative would be sustainable beyond the timeframe of the New Horizons for Seniors Program funding and that it would involve a broad range and number of stakeholders across the community in order to have collective impact.
Building stakeholder capacity in the areas of media, public and government relations was determined to be an effective way to strengthen the impact of the CES Extension.
“It is essential to develop effective strategic messaging and understand how public/media relations and the news cycle function and can be leveraged to achieve sector objectives,” says Tim Henderson, project manager of the CES Extension.
To sustain the impact of the CES Extension, Tim also notes that “stakeholders must develop a shared understanding of the political environment in which we are currently operating to ensure that we are better able to work with the Government of Alberta and other orders of government to meet the needs of seniors.”
ESCC contracted Berlin Communications to deliver the three training sessions. The invitation to participate in these sessions was shared with more than 150 people representing 90 different organizations. We are pleased to report that 31 people from 16 organizations attended one or more of the sessions.
In addition to helping individual organizations build their capacity, the training was also intended to enhance the capacity of the sector to communicate with a collective voice. “We are hoping that through these training opportunities, we will initiate some collective strategic thinking and communications for our sector and we will build on those shared experiences and messages to bring organizations together for further conversation and strategizing,” says Tim.
Using consistent messaging will also help seniors organizations speak with a collective voice, and ESCC is happy to share key messages that were developed by Berlin Communications for the Connecting Edmonton Seniors initiative. These powerful messages speak to important issues such as the value of seniors organizations in delivering services that are vital to the social health of our community and the importance of collaboration in developing comprehensive solutions that allow seniors to age healthily in the community.
To learn more about Connecting Edmonton Seniors and get involved, contact Sheila Hallett, ESCC's executive director, at sheila@seniorscouncil.net.
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Age-friendly podcast initiative unites the generations.
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The Age Friendly Edmonton (AFE) Intergenerational and Diversity Hubs kicked off the year with the launch of a new podcast, The Shared Mic: Conversations for the Ages. This intergenerational podcast brings together different people who would be unlikely to share a room together, simply because they were born at a different point in time. By creating space for intergenerational discussions, AFE hopes to build a city that values, respects, and actively supports citizens from all walks of life.
Salima Suleman, AFE intergenerational champion, and Eric Storey, AFE diversity champion, coordinated the podcasts to generate greater understanding of different viewpoints and perspectives among Edmontonians — old, young, and anywhere in between.
Salima was inspired to create the podcast due to her own unique life experiences. As a social butterfly and pure extravert, Salima sparked up conversation with 80-something Henry at Remedy coffee shop one day. The two became fast friends and have maintained their friendship to this day. Salima hopes that the Shared Mic creates space for more friendships like the one she shares with Henry.
“In the Shared Mic, we bring together two people who are at different stages of life, we give them a topic, and we ask them to find connection. It’s been a really interesting experiment because everyone we’ve put together has been able to find something in common,” says Salima.
“By sharing across generations, we hope people gain a greater understanding of one another and the richness of experience that exists in Edmonton,” adds Eric.
In each podcast episode, guests are assigned a topic and given free reign to discuss that topic while sharing different perspectives, but also finding common ground. At a time when we like to focus on what divides us as “Boomers”, “Millennials” “Gen Xers”, and so on, the Shared Mic brings us together to create a shared understanding of the human experience.
Episodes feature a range of topics, including navigating relationships, finding space to be ones’ true self, and the evolving role of technology in our lives. You can access The Shared Mic online or through your favourite podcast streaming service, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
Contact Caroline Gee, Age Friendly Community Connector at caroline@seniorscouncil.net to learn more.
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Engaging with community-based seniors organizations.
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Over the last several months, the Edmonton Seniors Coordinating Council has been involved in the Community-Based Seniors Serving (CBSS) Sector Engagement Project along with partners Age Friendly Calgary, carya, and Sage Seniors Association. Together, our organizations have been inspired by the example of the seniors serving sector in British Columbia and believe a made-in Alberta sector has great potential to advance the important work of community-based seniors serving organizations in the province.
The purpose of the CBSS project was to connect with community-based seniors’ serving organizations across the province to discuss and build upon the assumption that coordinating community-based services for seniors is a critical step in meeting the needs of the growing seniors’ demographic. The project involved 26 conversations with community-based seniors serving organizations across the province (10 of them were held in Edmonton and area) as a first step to building an “Alberta made” community-based seniors serving sector. The conversations focused on four key areas:
- Strengths and challenges related to the healthy aging of seniors in the community.
- Concerns of organizations as they respond to these strengths and challenges.
- Priorities for collaboration to support seniors in their community.
- Interest in creating a community-based seniors serving sector.
The project was funded by Alberta Seniors and Housing and was initiated in the spring of 2019 and completed in January 2020. A final report is expected to be released by mid-late March 2020 and will be made public via our respective websites and through ESCC’s newsletters.
The Edmonton and area sessions involved 64 individuals. Five conversations were held in Edmonton and one each in Sherwood Park, Camrose, Stony Plain, Leduc, and St Albert.
Solid interest was shown by participants at these sessions and many of them joined ESCC at our December Seasonal Gathering to hear Dr. Kahir Lalji, Director of Population Health of the United Way of the Lower Mainland, B.C., speak about the province’s Healthy Aging model. The response to his presentation was very positive.
ESCC organized Dr. Lalji’s visit to Edmonton because we recognize the value of community-based senior-serving organizations and the important role they play in supporting seniors to age well in community. Research has shown that 80 per cent of health outcomes are determined by non-medical factors, including social support, which is the essential role that CBSS organizations play. They are efficient and effective, and make enormous impact. B.C’s Healthy Aging model is built on a philosophy that resonates with the guiding principles of ESCC: we all benefit when seniors are valued, respected and supported to live healthily in their own homes and communities.
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ESCC advocates for health, transit and advocacy office.
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As part of our advocacy role, ESCC voices seniors issues and represents perspectives of community-based seniors organizations to spark systems change that enables seniors to age well in the community.
Reducing isolation for better health
Our work with the Connecting Edmonton Seniors initiative has reinforced the understanding that social isolation has severe health consequences for seniors. Health outcomes are related more to environmental, behavioural and social factors than medical care.
The antidote for social isolation is greater inclusion. Community-based seniors organizations play a vital role in keeping seniors connected, engaged and healthy which contributes to the social health of our community. We need to start treating community-based support that keeps people socially connected as part of our preventative health care strategy.
One challenge in this area is that social inclusion initiatives and other community-based senior services require more investment. It is necessary for communities, organizations, businesses, philanthropists, and government to come together and re-think how we invest in health and aging.
Funding from the Connecting Edmonton Seniors Extension allowed us to share this message with a broad audience by including a special feature in the February 26 edition of the Edmonton Journal and the March edition of Edmonton Prime Times. We’re very pleased with the attention that has been generated about these issues and the conversations that have been started.
Transit
ESCC continues to speak out on behalf of seniors’ transportation needs. In November 2019, ESCC presented to City Council Executive Committee about how seniors would be affected by proposed ETS Fare Policy changes.
The cost of a senior (65+) annual pass will increase from $136.50 to $374 to enable the City to give people in need access to lower-cost or free transit. This included providing free annual passes for seniors with an income of less than $28,513.
While welcoming free annual passes for low-income seniors, ESCC highlighted that there is a significant number of seniors who don’t qualify for the low-income pass. Those most concerned about the increased cost are seniors whose income is just above the low-income threshold, so they do not qualify for financial benefits.
The City implemented the fare policy changes which increased the cost of the senior annual pass, and many seniors who were affected by the change shared their concerns. In February, City Council approved a motion from Councillor Knack to postpone the increase to seniors' transit passes for one year for seniors who had purchased an annual pass for 2019. A sliding scale fee is to be implemented later this year in conjunction with the smart cards that are being developed for transit.
Seniors Advocate
ESCC’s Board of Directors sent a letter to the Premier’s Office in November 2019 raising concerns about the Office of the Seniors Advocate (OSA) being consolidated with the Office of the Alberta Health Advocates.
One concern was that perceiving aging as a health issue is too narrow a focus and does a disservice to seniors. The board also noted that the OSA operated under a Ministerial Order instead of having legislation that could allow the office to act on recommendations.
The letter urged the Government of Alberta to continue the OSA with a separate mandate from the Alberta Health Advocates and consider providing the OSA with the legislation it needs to address the diverse and fundamental needs of our growing seniors’ population.
The reply from The Honourable Josephine Pon, Minister of Seniors and Housing noted that since nearly one-third of inquiries to the OSA were about health care and health-related supports, combining the OSA with the Alberta Health Advocates Office will address the concerns raised by seniors.
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