Hamilton’s Older Adult Plan … living in an Age-Friendly Community

The Task To develop a high level Older Adults Plan for City of Hamilton at September 8 Emergency and Community Services Committee that will guide Hamilton towards becoming a more Age-Friendly City Hamilton Council on Aging (HCoA), City of Hamilton working together under a Steering Committee that includes Seniors Advisory Committee, YWCA, McMaster, SAC, HCCI, Regional Indian Centre, Centre Santé Communautaire and others from HCoA Plan will be nested into what the City has underway, identify gaps, flag opportunities, make recommendations for improvements and add an Older Adults and Age-Friendly lens Identify opportunities to leverage, assets to build on with both City and in the Community Scope stops at Health, except strategic forays in the grey area between Community Services/ Aging in Place and Health

Process This is the second of two “system” oriented conversations that will help develop recommendations on possible systems changes that would improve access to existing programs and services. Numerous interviews with City Staff March 5, Social Participation Next – Consultation Workbook for small, self-organized group discussions (April- May) 6 Focus groups with older adults across the City (April- May) Bring findings back to City Staff interviewed and Steering Committee (mid June) to discuss proposals, add solutions, work through issues, build relationships

Transparency Follow us on or our blog Check out the HCoA website where we will be posting documents friendly-hamilton/city-of-hamilton-older-adult-plan/ friendly-hamilton/city-of-hamilton-older-adult-plan/

Today: Guiding Questions Enabling Aging in Community We know that some social and environmental determinants of healthy aging have a greater impact than others. What changes can we make locally that would have the greatest impact on people’s chances of aging in community? How can we work together on some of these issues to bring about change? (Participants will be invited to lead a conversation on one of the themes identified during the report back) Communication and Information: Improving Connectivity - How do we work together to move forward on coordinating and streamlining communication and information?

Today  Dr. Mary Buzzell on the concept of “personhood”  Conversations: Quickly inventory what’s available for a) the well-fit, b) people needing some assistance, c) people who need much assistance and where are the gaps  Identify systemic barriers that people experience e.g. affordability, availability, mobility  A brief demonstration from Pauline Kajiura on 211 and the new RedBook of Hamilton  Conversations: How do we overcome the barriers? Are there opportunities?  Participants create an agenda for the last conversation: develop recommendations for better coordination of planning, communication and information dissemination and other ideas that come from the day  Identify next steps for recommendations that require more refinement/ input/ expert or consumer knowledge. Volunteers?