A Call to Action
Why is the Age Well Plan Important?
It engages community members and partner agencies to recognize the growing and vital role that older adults play in making Boulder County a wonderful place to live.
Age Well Plan Background
The Age Well plan is intended to be a starting point for a collaborative, interactive, community- driven process.
Age Well Boulder County (which runs in coordination with Boulder County Area Agency on Aging) represents input from over 300 older adults, community members, service providers, organizations, and leaders.
Together, we need to ensure that:
- There are affordable and appropriate housing options in safe and vibrant neighborhoods;
- There is an accessible network of transportation options to get people where they need to go;
- Employment, volunteer, social, educational, and recreational opportunities are widely available;
- Health and wellness are personal and community priorities;
- There is recognition, support, and training of caregivers of older adults;
- Communities, neighborhoods, and public places are created with age-friendly design principles in mind.
The Age Well Plan is compiled every 4 years, based on the information collected by Age Well Boulder County and its partner organizations.
Age Well Boulder County is an ongoing, organic process that engages community members and partner agencies to recognize the growing and vital role that older adults play in making Boulder County a wonderful place to live.
In order for this plan to be a success, each of us must make a personal commitment to age well.
In addition, every community must recognize the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and strive to make aging well a community priority. Information in this plan can be used to develop action steps for policy work, public information campaigns, and resource identification to fund innovative pilot projects in the community.
The Age Well plan is an invitation and a call to action for policy makers, planners, funders, service providers, faith communities, community organizations, and community members to view aging in a new and positive way, and to work together so that we may all age well.
Engagement Process
Building on over a decade of collecting and analyzing information about the strengths and needs of older adults in Boulder County, an innovative group of managers of aging service agencies (the Leadership Team) initiated the creation of a countywide strategic plan for aging well.
This strategic plan was first published in 2006 under the name “Creating Vibrant Communities in Which We All Age Well”, and updated in 2010. In order to ensure that the plan continues to address the current needs of the county’s aging population, the most recent update of the plan was undertaken in 2014.
Data was gathered from hundreds of community members through a variety of methods including Community Conversations (focus groups), a random sample quantitative survey of the county’s 60+ population, called the Community Assessment Survey of Older Adults (CASOA™), and priority area discussions to dig deeper into specific areas of interest/concern. In addition, key staff were surveyed and/or interviewed to gain understanding about the current challenges and opportunities they see for the aging population of Boulder County.
DO YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED
IN THE CONVERSATION?
Plans are underway to update
the Age Well Plan in 2018.
Timeline
Explore what the process looked like in 2014. We hope you’ll get involved with the 2018 Age Well Plan.
In-depth focus groups were conducted with more than 260 people to gain firsthand understanding of the day-to-day experiences of seniors; identify any significant unmet needs; identify barriers that exist to accessing services; and identify priorities held by older adults for aging well.
This anecdotal sharing of personal stories and circumstances offered a glimpse into people’s feelings, concerns, and lives. Eighteen sessions were held, in 7 distinct geographic areas and with 5 targeted groups of people. The discussion with participants in each group was carried out through a structured, but comfortable and informal conversation.
Each Conversation was moderated by a facilitator with assistance from a note-taker. In addition to the discussion, a written response form was completed by most participants, allowing them to add to the session record with a greater degree of anonymity.
Geographic Conversations were held in:
- Allenspark,
- Boulder,
- Erie,
- Lafayette,
- Longmont,
- Louisville,
- and Nederland.
Targeted Conversations were held with groups of:
- Latinos,
- family caregivers,
- low-income older adults,
- residents of senior housing sites,
- and with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adults (LGBT).
The CASOA™ survey was mailed to a random sample of 3,000 older-adult households in Boulder County.
The survey’s objectives were to identify community strengths and weaknesses and specific needs of older adults, with the goal of assisting local governments, community organizations, the private sector, and community members in more accurately predicting the services and resources needed to serve the aging population and to assess a community’s readiness to support aging in the coming years.
In order to further explore the topics and themes that came from the Community Conversations, Quadrant Sessions were held, each addressing a specific quadrant topic.
At each work session, interested community members, service providers, advisory board members, and others were given background information including:
- demographic trends;
- a summary of the results of CASOA™;
- and a summary of the results of the Community Conversations.
Working in small groups, quadrant session participants were asked to respond to and give their best advice about a series of specific questions developed by the Leadership Team.
These questions were developed with the CASOA™ and Community Conversation data in mind and were intended to dig deeper into important topics that arose.
The Leadership Team considered information gathered from the key informant interviews/surveys, Community Conversations, CASOA™, and the Quadrant Sessions to revise and/or create new goals and action steps for this 2015 update of the plan.
Leadership Team
Special thanks to the Leadership Team for their invaluable insight and direction:
Katie Beasley, City of Louisville Senior Services
Cindy Hickman, Town of Erie Active Adults
Eden Mayne, City of Boulder Senior Services
Sherry Leach, Boulder County Area Agency on Aging
Laura Mathews, Boulder County Area Agency on Aging
Michele Waite, City of Longmont Senior Services
Partners
