Transcript: Age Friendly BC - Part 3 - Involving Seniors
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Colin Milner
Chief Executive Office
International Council on Active Aging
Seniors say plan with us, not for us. They need to a way to have their voices heard and programs will be more successful if they're built based on their advice.
Steve Meikle
Manager of Community Services
District of Saanich
In order to get the ball rolling and to have seniors participate and be a part of the planning process, I really think you need to take the time and listen, number one, and be part of their community if you like. So it may be a group of seniors that are interested in a social or a recreational opportunity, and we don't need to, as a municipality, come in there and tell them what to do, but take the time to listen and figure out ways we might be able to help.
Jane Osborne
Survey Team Lead
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
We set out to make sure the voices of seniors on the North Shore are heard when politicians of all government ilk are planning services for seniors. We wanted them to be providing the services that seniors actually said they wanted.
Sue Jackel
Senior Activist
Sechelt
The survey was based on surveys that have been done in other communities to find out what the priorities of seniors are in that particular community. So it was a question of going around to where seniors were and explaining why it was important for them to take half an hour to answer a questionnaire.
Jane Osborne
Survey Team Lead
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
We wanted to hear from the seniors that play such an important role in our society but aren't comfortable with coming out and telling politicians what they want. It was a terrific experience because it took me to so many different places. Seniors of all, the full demographic, from recent immigrants who didn't have English and we needed to use translators in order to communicate and get the information from them.
Sheila Gilmour
Board Member
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
We've always realized that we need information to back up the things that we say are necessary when we meet with politicians, or planners or whoever.
Jane Osborne
Survey Team Lead
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
I know from professionals in the field that to put 3,000 surveys out in the North Shore and get 1,200 back, especially a survey of the length that we did. It was not a short survey. We've hit a tremendous chord and for me personally that is very, very satisfying.
Sue Jackel
Senior Activist
Sechelt
We put the results out to the community. We put them up on websites; we took them to the council. Nobody in Sechelt now is ignorant of the fact that we have a high proportion of seniors and they have needs.
Judith Harrington
Survey Commmittee Member
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
Well I think it's essential to be proactive in your future - I think participating in this survey is the first step and then hopefully all the people who have participated will want to actually be active in making sure it's carried out.
Rev. Gary Hamblin
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church
Seniors have to become active. There's no two ways about it, otherwise decisions will be made by somebody sitting in a tower in some building in Victoria, or in Ottawa, or in the city hall for them.
Steve Meikle
Manager of Community Services
District of Saanich
I think they bring life experience. I think they bring the experience of seeing some things in the past that have been tried and maybe didn't work out so well and can give an opinion of how those things could look different in the future. And what we're finding with seniors is that they're more connected in the community than young people that might be newer to the community. You know it's building, again, building those relationships and building those connections throughout that we could, you know, ask one senior a question and it's going to trickle throughout the community, so we get that feedback building and kind of get the cauldron bubbling if you like.
Jane Osborne
Survey Team Lead
Lionsview Seniors' Planning Society
We don't realize, the huge assets, the strengths, the knowledge, the skills that seniors have; the things that they want to bring to community. They want to be active in their own futures -- they have a lot to give and we're not capitalizing on it yet, so that's really where we want to go.
