During the planning phase, a community member was quoted saying, “When you give input, you want to see change”. This message is always front of mind as the Age-Friendly work progresses. This section will highlight some of the many strategies that Age-Friendly Columbus & Franklin County uses to seek change in our community.
Mobility Strategies
Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County has worked on many mobility related strategies. AFCFC recognizes mobility impacts many parts of our lives, learn more about why in this Tedx from AFCFC Director of Research, Dr. Holly Dabelko-Schoeny:
On August 26th, 2019 AFCFC, along with many community partners, unveiled the Age-Friendly Mobility Project Launch report. You can learn about these strategies by reviewing the report here: https://agefriendlycolumbus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/age-friendly-mobility-launch-v02.pdf
Among these mobility strategies was the Lyfting the Villages Pilot. Watch this quick video to learn more!
Another mobility strategies is Safe-Routes to Age in Place. Read the full Safe Routes to Age In Place report here: https://agefriendlycolumbus.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SRTAIP-Final-Report.pdf
Greater Columbus Network of Villages
Locally, Villages have been a crucial partner to help pilot and implement Age-Friendly strategies. Villages are grassroots, member-drive, community organizations that empower older adults 50+ to age in community by providing engagement and connection. The Village movement started in the 1990s when neighbors in Beacon Hill, Boston came together to help each other age in their community. Each of the villages offer a variety of supportive health and human services, reflective of the unique needs of their own community, creating a system-wide network of high-quality person-centered resources. While each village is unique, all provide similar core services that allow members to age in their own community. Villages work to maintain stable housing for members through volunteer services and vetted providers committed to providing cost effective services. Robust opportunities for activities facilitated by the village enhance members’ physical and mental health and prevent the development or exacerbation of costly health problems. Through innovative collaborations, free transportation services remove barriers to mobility for members.
Learn more about the Village to Village Network on their website, https://www.vtvnetwork.org/.
A key strategy in the Age-Friendly plan has been to support the creation of more local villages and create the Greater Columbus Network of Villages (GCNV).
The GCNV is comprised of the current operating villages across Central Ohio, as well as Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County. Villages are intentionally small and neighborhood based. In order to show the power of their collective impact, the GCNV was established in 2019.
AFCFC staff attend the GCNV meetings, collaborate on outreach and community engagement and enhance advocacy efforts through shared communication. Through focus groups and surveys, AFCFC also provides quantitative and qualitative evaluations for each village that enhances the ability to demonstrate impact.
The GCNV harnesses collective knowledge and innovative solutions to build a supportive and inclusive community for older adults. While each village serves a distinct area, they work together to amplify existing resources, share best practices, coordinate social activities and provide an ever-stronger network of support to neighbors. The GCNV is creating a model of collaboration gaining national traction and is a pivotal partner of AFCFC for pilot programming, community engagement, research and harnessing the voices and choices older adults.
Review the GCNV website, https://villageintheville.helpfulvillage.com/
A map of the currently Central Ohio Villages! (as of 10/19)
Grey/Green Alliance
Learn about the work happening with the Grey-Green Alliance, a initiative looking at the impacts of climate change on older adults.
Grey-Green Alliance to bring resources for older adults facing the impacts of climate change
Age-Friendly Businesses
Based off of the Colorado Springs Age-Friendly’s structure, AFCFC collaborated with the local Better Business Bureau (BBB) to create an Age-Friendly Business designation. Businesses are reviewed by community volunteers. Volunteers use the Age-Friendly Business checklist created in partnership with an ADA specialist. Volunteers receive this Age-Friendly Business toolkit in order to completed business evaluations.
After a business is approved, they are added to the BBB Age-Friendly Business directory and sent a window decal to proudly hang. You can find the list Age-Friendly Businesses on the BBB website.
Blackburn Better Block
Better Block was a rapid 2-3 month planning effort culminating into a week long build and transformative event day with collaboration from an engaged community and temporarily improves the physical and economic environment on a specific city block.
In collaboration with Team Better Block, AARP Livable Communities, and AARP Ohio, AFCFC hosted the Blackburn Better Block, a tactical urbanism event, on October 12th, 2018. Two workshops were held prior to the event to receive input from community members. After hearing what the community wanted, a concept plan was developed. The entire week leading up to the event, over 100 individuals came to Blackburn Recreation Center working to bring the concept plan to life and making the Better Block a reality.
For more information on this project (and others like it) please visit this website:
https://teambetterblock.com/Blackburn-1
This report was created by Team Better Block, highlighting the Blackburn Better Block:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BiMBjB-HNlP-_dqT1AImdVbpIsHOvk_a/view
Positive Aging Campaign
Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin County has employee many strategies to work to end ageism locally. These approaches have been diverse and across different forms of media. Before we explore these, learn from internationally known expert, Ashton Applewhite about why we need to end ageism!
AFCFC launch the #ButtonUpAgeism campaign at the International Federation on Aging Conference in August of 2018. Since then, these buttons have been created with individuals of all ages and have been sent all over the world. To date, well over 3,000 buttons have been created! Check out some of the buttons below and follow along on social media #ButtonUpAgeism.
A multi-media positive aging campaign was launched in March 2020. The images below are billboards that appeared around Columbus highlighting local older adults!
Listen to Dr. Holly Dabelko-Schoeny on WOSU All Sides with Ann Fisher discussing ageism in popular media.
https://radio.wosu.org/post/ageism-popular-media#stream/0
Senior Service Roundtable
Senior Services Roundtable was born out of a meeting between Mayor Michael Coleman and community activist Fran Ryan in 2007 where the Mayor called upon Fran to “help our seniors.” With Columbus City Firefighter Alonzo J. King Jr., Mary Funk, Mike Sexton, Director of Community Affairs at City of Columbus and Dave Paul, a concerned citizen who Fran assisted with a caregiving issue, the idea of Senior Services Roundtable of Columbus and Franklin County was born. Fran reached out to allies, the Franklin County Office on Aging and the Central Ohio Area Agency on Agency and the core group was established.
The strength of the local aging network needs to be continually shown through data. To that end, AFCFC had a strategy to quantify the impact of the Senior Services Roundtable. Review the below document, created by two student interns, Emily Long and Ava Eisele.
Student in Residence
In Autumn of 2018, AFCFC piloted their first Student in Residence Program with OhioLiving’s Westminster -Thurber Retirement Community (OLWT). The program allows for an Ohio State University student to live at OWLT for the entirety of the Autumn and Spring semesters. The student in Residence engages within the community in a variety of formal and informal interactions. This is done with the intent of creating intergenerational relationships in which both the student and community benefits from.
Watch this highlight by WOSU on the Age-Friendly Student In Residence program.
Building Empathy in Dementia Care with Virtual Reality Simulation
In partnership with Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, Age-Friendly has been researching the impact of using virtual reality as a training approach to build empathy in practitioners. Learn more about this unique partnership at the link below and watch the video demonstration:
Change AGEnts
Every January, Age-Friendly Columbus and Franklin Country hosts Change AGEnts, a class in which middle school students learn about the aging process and the international age-friendly communities movement. Local older adults are invited to participate in the lessons by talking about their experiences with ageism. The students then work together to address a challenge the older adults discussed.
Nearly three-dozen Change AGEnts classes have been held since 2018, resulting in approximately 600 student engagements with older adults.
“We can combat ageism by making connections to older people and being respectful,” said one student, adding, “I think my favorite part was all the stories the older people shared with us.”
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