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ESCC Updates February 2019
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Community conversations:
improving social inclusion for Edmonton seniors .
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On January 21, ESCC submitted a concept proposal for a project to increase the social inclusion of seniors in Edmonton to the New Horizons for Seniors Program (NHSP) for Pan-Canadian projects. We hope to receive an invitation to submit a fully-developed proposal later this spring, with implementation of approved projects to begin later this summer.
Our proposal will include projects and ideas from organizations in Edmonton which want to collaborate to increase social inclusion for seniors. If we are invited to submit a proposal, we will have a very short window of opportunity to receive community-based collaborative proposals for activities that will align with NHSP objectives and our Collective Impact Plan. We are encouraging potential partners to start work now on outlining projects and making connections.
Our Next Steps document outlines our call for Edmonton communities to brainstorm ways of engaging seniors and breaking down barriers to inclusion that are faced by many vulnerable groups. We are looking to support and build on existing knowledge, experience, and networks; and to create new relationships and partnerships that will lead to greater sustainable capacity, engagement, and social inclusion of seniors. Please share the document widely and use it to stimulate and facilitate conversations that will lead to more great work in Edmonton.
Contact Tim Henderson at tim@seniorscouncil.net to learn more about how you can get involved.
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Stakeholders gather to discuss the New Horizons for Seniors Program Call for Concepts to support social inclusion of seniors in January
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Collaborative funding for home supports program .
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ESCC has facilitated the Seniors Home Supports Program since 2015 in partnership with seniors organizations in six districts across Edmonton.
In 2019 Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) took over responsibility for funding the program from the City of Edmonton’s Citizen Access and Inclusion unit and funds will be provided through FCSS collaboration funding.
A condition of this funding is that only one funding agreement will be issued for the collaborative with ESCC as the signing body. What makes this different is that in past years funding agreements were created for ESCC and each district agency. This funding arrangement acknowledges ESCC for the important backbone role we play in supporting the program and reinforces that the Seniors Home Supports Program is a collaborative.
In addition to managing funds for the Seniors Home Supports Program, ESCC will continue to chair and provide administration support for committees, prepare reports, update the manual, lead and support the developmental evaluation, lead the shared promotion and advertising, facilitate connections and share resources among partners.
For more information, or to receive updated promotional materials (including handouts for seniors and announcements and images you can include in newsletters), contact ESCC at info@seniorscouncil.net.
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Representatives of the Seniors Home Supports Program collaborative
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Guiding our work for the next five years .
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ESCC consulted with key stakeholders in health and community to develop a strategic framework that will guide our work over the next five years. The ESCC Board of Directors adopted this framework in January and work will now begin to gather feedback from our members and stakeholders to build our strategic plan and address identified priorities.
The framework reinforces the importance of ESCC’s role in bringing people, ideas and information together to build collaborative approaches to services, supports and circumstances affecting older adults. In fact, that is our revised mission statement. We aim to do this with a statement of vision: Collective community action that engages older adults and supports their well-being.
The strategic framework builds on ESCC’s strengths in shared planning and coordination and provides direction for collaborating with an aim of collective impact.
The work we have done over the last few years has allowed us to increase our ability to support collaborations with our members. As we look ahead we want to continue to bridge the relationship between community-based seniors’ organizations and other sectors such as health, transportation and housing.
Our board and staff believe this is the work that will have the greatest impact as ESCC undertakes its capacity building and backbone roles in supporting the community-based seniors’ serving sector in addressing healthy aging outcomes for seniors.
We invite you to learn more about the rationale behind the framework and our new strategic goals by reviewing our discussion paper.
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City of Edmonton approach to support seniors centres .
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The City of Edmonton recently made public their Approach to Supporting Seniors’ Centres Report 2019 which will replace the current Seniors' Centres Plan 2011-2021 when it expires.
The report is one step in a process that started in 2017 with the Senior Centres of the Future Final Research Report and Edmonton Seniors Centres Strategy-What We Heard Report which summarized input from public engagement sessions.
The Approach to Supporting Seniors’ Centres Report 2019 outlines four strategic directions:
- Update the current funding model
- Foster inclusive, responsive, innovative and measurable practices
- Foster sustainable and equitable services and programming
- Focus on relationships and partnerships
The Community and Public Services Committee received the report for information January 30 and listened to presentations from a number of senior centre executive directors; ESCC Executive Director, Sheila Hallett; and Reg Joseph of the Edmonton Health City initiative. Presentations focused on the following areas:
- people first – the importance of the services the centres provide to seniors (members and non-members) as opposed to focusing on the physical building
- the importance of these services to support healthy aging
- suggestions for a better model for measurement of results: using the Alberta Association of Senior Centres Healthy Aging Framework as opposed to judging senior centres by the size of their membership
- there will be a need for supports to senior centres to aid in the implementation of measurement practices
- seniors centres are increasingly collaborating and partnering and want to be engaged with the City of Edmonton and ESCC to determine ways to implement strategic directions
City Councillors were very engaged in the discussions surrounding this new approach. The presentations generated lots of questions from the Council Committee members (who were attuned to the points being made) and lots of feedback for the City administration.
The City's administration team committed to two phases of implementation for the Approach to Supporting Seniors' Centres.
- Phase 1 (2019-2020) Meet with seniors’ centres and ESCC to determine ways to implement strategic directions 2, 3, and 4. A motion was made that the City administration report back on phase 1 progress by September 2020.
- Phase 2 (2021 and on) Implementation and evaluation. At this point strategic direction 1 will be looked at to determine a funding model which would align with phase 1.
ESCC looks forward to working with the City of Edmonton and seniors centre stakeholders to generate ideas for how to implement the strategic directions.
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Age Friendly Edmonton storybooks .
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Knowledge to Action grants were created in the first phase of Age Friendly Edmonton to tell the stories of people in this city working together to make our community a place that values, respects and supports the well-being of seniors. With the assistance of a writer, each of the organizations that were funded helped to create a “storybook” to capture their work though images and storytelling. These are their stories:
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Telling the Story of the GeriActors
The GeriActors embarked on an intergenerational playwriting and teaching initiative. They wrote and performed new plays that viewed growing older from multiple generations. Becca Barrington, Associate Director of the GeriActors says “Seniors tell such wonderful stories, they are wildly imaginative, not afraid to be silly and poke fun of themselves.” In addition to the playwriting they worked with a high school drama class and created a teaching manual to help prepare more people to be able to facilitate experiential intergenerational theatre storytelling.
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Telling the Story of Ageing to Sageing
Ageing and Sageing brought together seniors in the community of Beverly through an initiative launched by Sage Seniors Association. This project invited seniors to take the lead in finding ways to support one another in making their dream projects a reality and in helping them to find a place for their skills and wisdom to be utilized. For example, when the seniors said they wanted to mentor school children, they were soon sharing their skills in cooking, knitting and gardening. As one senior said, “And for me? It’s simple. My life is fuller.”
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Telling the Story of LGBTQ2S+ Connections across Generations
The Edmonton Pride Seniors Group identified the value of older LGBTQ2S+ adults learning and being inspired by LGBTQ2S+ youth, while in turn the older adults could act as role models for youth in the development of resilience to overcoming challenges. With an eye to creating a safe environment and a forum for mutual learning, the Edmonton Pride Seniors Group held intergenerational dialogues with the Alberta Gender & Sexual Orientation Alliance Network. At the end of the first meeting, the first question was the easiest to answer: “When can we meet again and who else should we invite.”
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Telling the Story of Intergenerational Connections at Strathcona Place
Strathcona Place 55+ Centre is a hub of activity. You will see high school students helping in the cafeteria, seniors and young people playing board games and those in the atrium engaging in conversation during literature night. Francisco Yu, the centre’s Executive Director says, “Our programs offer a great way to close the gap between generations.” The Edmonton Intergenerational Programming Committee at Strathcona Place is made of youth and seniors working together in creating and planning all its intergenerational programs.
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Each of these initiatives supports seniors in remaining engaged and in sharing their skills, knowledge and contributions with the community. We invite you to read their stories.
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Learning opportunities for
assisted transportation providers .
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To help seniors assisted transportation service providers respond to diverse and changing needs and growing demand for services, the Assisted Transportation Network Alberta community of practice aims to provide resources that strengthen organizations’ ability and capacity to provide services.
The Edmonton Seniors Coordinating Council (ESCC) and the Medically At Risk Driver Centre (MARD) co-hosted a focus group with local providers in December to identify topics that could enhance the knowledge and skills of service providers.
The following topics were established as priorities:
- Data on demographics and transportation needs
- Social marketing/communication tactics to build awareness of existing services
- Available technology for assisted transportation service providers
- Affordability of service
- Grants and funding sources
- Health topics (e.g., dementia, social isolation, hoarding)
- Establishing boundaries with clients
- Safety issues and handling mobility aids
- Insurance requirements
ESCC and MARD will use these ideas to plan webinars and/or events through the Assisted Transportation Network Alberta in 2019. These results will also be shared with the Alternate Transportation for Seniors Advisory Committee, which is facilitated by representatives of Alberta Seniors and Housing, to explore synergies in addressing these priority areas.
If you think your organization could benefit from these learning opportunities, contact mard@ualberta.ca.
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Being smarter with our community initiatives .
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ESCC's December Conversation Cafe - Being Smarter With Our Community Initiatives - provided an opportunity to reflect on how important it is for organizations to be nimble and open to adapting their programs as client and community needs evolve.
PEGASIS
The event featured presentations by partners in the Pan-Edmonton Group Addressing Social Isolation of Seniors (PEGASIS). The initiative is in its third year of finding socially-isolated seniors, reaching out to them, connecting, and matching them to formal and informal supports. The partner organizations shared what they've learned and how they've adapted their programs to respond to evolving needs.
Smart Cities Challenge
The event also featured a presentation about Edmonton’s proposal for the Smart Cities Challenge. PEGASIS data was used to draft the initial proposal by the City of Edmonton that placed them as one of the top five finalists in the national Smart Cities competition. They are looking to engage seniors across Edmonton and to support their well-being with the application of appropriate technologies. The City of Edmonton is a key partner in the work to reduce isolation and promote social inclusion of seniors, and this was an opportunity to bring these two initiatives publicly together for the first time.
Discussions
As always with our conversation cafes, we like to give participants the opportunity to discuss relevant topics with colleagues in the sector.
We asked participants to think about what resonated after hearing the presentations. One of the themes that emerged from table discussions centred around the value of organizations coming together from different sectors, like the PEGASIS partners, to figure out ways to tackle issues for the benefit of the aging population. The coming together of agencies to collaborate can enable agencies to cross-promote their services, thereby creating a broader network among senior-serving organizations.
Many tables also discussed the value of spreading information such as how effective various strategies have been in reducing social isolation, the importance of human connection and connection across agencies, and building awareness of what exists across the city that can be of benefit to seniors who are at risk of isolation.
We invite you to watch the videos of the presentations and Q & A session and review the PowerPoint presentation to learn more.
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Katie Hayes explains Edmonton's proposal for the Smart Cities Challenge
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