Transcript Making our city age-friendly

Presentation to MAV
Age-Friendly Communities and Local Government
NATIONAL CONFERENCE
29 and 30 October 2014
Sharyn Briggs and Carol Sinclair
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Our presentation today
• About a project undertaken by Lane Cove
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Council to gain membership into the WHO
Global AFCC Network
How we created an all-of-Council response to
ageing
How we have harnessed older people as the
drivers of age-friendly directions
What has come out of the project
Has it changed Council’s thinking?
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What Did Lane Cove Do?
• Prepared a ‘Strategy for an Age-Friendly Lane
Cove’ including:
A background review
An existing evidence base
A baseline assessment
A 3 year Council-wide plan of action
• The first AFC in NSW – in June 2014
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Why Did We Do It?
• Ageing population only just above average for
NSW
• Aim was to assist Council to respond to the
challenges of an ageing population
• Also wanted to foster an environment that
promotes active ageing and community
engagement.
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How Did We Do It?
• Used the WHO framework and bottom up
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approach
Referred to the Vancouver Protocol
Used the WHO checklists to assess the 8
domains of city life
Rang everyone we could
Took the best ideas from everywhere and
value added
Applied for membership as soon as we could
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Consultation, consultation and more
consultation
• 12 Focus groups – 2 with Service
“I’d hate to
move
away…”
Providers/Access Committee
• 4 Forums – morning, afternoon and evening
• Survey – paper and online, 276 respondents
• Total of people providing input was 479
“I need to
participate
more”
“Lifts are
untrustworthy so
getting
around is a
nightmare”
“It depends
where you
live whether
transport is
good”
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Promotion, promotion and even
more promotion
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Seniors Newsletter
Library
NGO’s
Council website
Local monthly paper
Regional newspaper
Letters to community
groups
• Attending activities and
events
• Council e-newsletters
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Information, information, and
drowning in information
• Used the survey as the assessment tool
• Also asked for suggestions on how to improve
age-friendliness
• Collated ‘good things’, not-so-good things’ and
suggestions for improvements from all
consultations
• Incorporated suggestions into a whole-ofCouncil Action Plan
• Developed the statistical rating.
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So How Did Lane Cove Score?
• But not so well there was not room for
improvement!
• An average score of 3.8 on a 5 point scale
• Three areas for Council to focus their efforts
on -
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How Did We Get Buy-In?
• Membership is supported by Council
BUT
• It needed to be recognised that:
Council is not responsible for everything
We already have many things covered in our
CSP/Operational Plan
We have limited budgets and must serve the whole
community, not just older people
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• Also emphasised:
 Sometimes just a case of doing things slightly differently
 It doesn’t necessarily mean a big bucket of money
 There are lots of things that can be done in normal
workloads
• Took responsibility off their shoulders
• Got the conversation about ageing going
before we started
• Kept good communication across Council
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Process
July 2011
• EOI to COTA Liveable Communities
Project
May 2012
• COTA presentation to Councillors and
staff
Feb 2013
• Budget for Ageing Strategy
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Cont’d
Oct 2013
• Inspired by the AFCC Conference in
Canberra!
Ongoing
• Frequent conversation with other
Council divisions
Nov 2013
• Gained Council support to follow the
WHO path
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How are Older People
Continuing to Drive the Process?
• Asked participants if they wanted to be kept
informed
• People requesting follow-up: 53% of
participants
• Regular updates in Seniors Newsletter, on
Council website and to the ‘keep informed’ list
• Community summary about to be widely
distributed...
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• Nominations for an Age-
Friendly Advisory
Committee called
• First meeting held on 23
October
• Seminars/talks on agefriendly topics planned
throughout year
• Planning an Annual AgeFriendly Forum
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What has come out of it?
• Increased general community awareness
• Increased whole of Council awareness
• A genuine appreciation by older people of what
Council is doing for them
• Community pride in participating in a global
movement
• A real feeling of older people being listened to,
respected and having opinions valued
• Hopefully an increase in age friendliness by the next
assessment!
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Has it changed Council’s thinking?
• Early days yet!
• Definitely raised awareness
• All parts of Council working toward achieving
change
• Already flowing into work plans
• A new emphasis and approach to what
Council is doing
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but only time and the older community will tell!
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