FORUM INFORMATION
Forum Update:
Seniors’ Health and Housing Forum, 2004:
Changing Regional Issues into
National Policies
The first huge snow storm in January didn’t stop over 90 seniors from getting on planes, boarding buses, catching trains, and driving through blizzards to get to Toronto. What made them perform these amazing feats against nature? Well, a huge commitment to creating policy changes that will enable seniors to age in their homes and communities, and avoid long-term care facilities.
Focus group participants from as far away as Kenora, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor, Ottawa, Bracebridge, and Hamilton braved the elements to attend the January 28 forum. Also joining us at the Forum were our non-senior allies from community organizations, as well as representatives from the federal government, who all took the trouble to shake the snow off their boots and share their policy ideas.
Forum Format
Our Forum, entitled “Seniors’ Health and Housing Crossroads Changing Regional Issues into National Policies”, was held at the Primrose Hotel in Toronto.
The Forum began with our inspirational morning speaker, Frances Lankin, who has fought many personal and social battles to improve the quality of life for seniors. Frances is also the president of the United Way of Greater Toronto. Frances validated our suspicions that ageism lay at the root of much of the resistance to changing programs for seniors. Frances also made us laugh and inspired us with stories of change.
After a brief review of the project, our 93 Forum participants dispersed into breakout sessions to roll up their sleeves and do the gritty work of identifying the policy areas that needed to be addressed. We organized the themes from our province-wide focus groups into 12 categories that formed the basis for discussion in the 12 corresponding breakout sessions. Each group had between 10 and 16 people in it, and the sessions lasted just over one hour.
The afternoon session began with seniors’ success stories, from Sault Ste. Marie. Our speaker, Evelyn Theriault, a dedicated community activist who chairs the Algoma Seniors Health Advisory Committee, sits on the District Health Committee on Long-Term Care, and who generously facilitated our Sault Ste. Marie focus group, encouraged us to work together for change. We spent the afternoon doing just that in more breakout sessions.
Bea Levis, OCSCO’s former co-chair and Carewatch Toronto’s current Chair, summarized the day of intense work. Then we all put on our big boots, and went home satisfied.
But, that’s not the end.
All the notes and recommendations from the forum were typed up for the Policy Working Group, which met the next day! The Policy Working Group, composed of 30 regional representatives from across the province, met at the Primrose Hotel on Thursday, January 29.
This group formalized written policy recommendations based on the feedback from the Forum. After a full day of discussions and writing, the group came up with from 1-5 recommendations for each of the 12 categories. The recommendations are posted on this site for your feedback (see homepage).
Our Vision
Through the forum we hoped to accurately capture what it is seniors need to remain in their homes and communities as they age. We aim to work as a province of passionate seniors to develop policies that will embrace the principles of independence, respect, flexibility, senior consultation and inclusion for all seniors. Please join us in this struggle, by becoming a member of OCSCO, and/or helping us to use our report to create change. For information on how you can help, please email
ocsco@web.net
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