the Ottawa Project

• 2 Coordinating Committee meetings and 1 Advisory Committee meeting to date (see minutes).
• Both Committees have discussed and revised focus group compositions. 10 focus groups are planned for January and February 2000.
• Both Committees have discussed focus group questions. It was determined that the questions need to be asked in simple and practical terms. For example: "What can your local government do about transportation for seniors?"
• The Committees are currently working on the first draft of the focus group questions.
• A Ph.D. student is in the process of being hired to facilitate the focus groups, collect the data and write the reports.
• The project Coordinator will assist the student.

Service Providers  (2 focus groups with a mixture of the following agencies)

• Community Care Access Centre
• Regional Geriatric Assessment Program
• Township of Osgood Home Support Program
• Sandy Hill Community Health Centre
• Somerset West Health Centre
• Centre de jour Guigues
• Senior Citizens Council of Ottawa-Carleton Inc.
• Perley & Rideau Veterans Health Centre
• Gloucester Senior Adults Centre
• Visiting Homemakers Assoc.
• Region of Ottawa-Carleton Health Department
• Yet Keen Day Centre
• Manoir St-Joseph

Seniors  (7 focus groups) 

• A seniors lunch club Le club 60
• A senior’s building in River Park, Hunt Club or Lincoln Heights
  Unitarian House
• A group of seniors from Sandy Hill Community Centre
• A group of seniors from Elisabeth Bruyère Day Hospital
• A Francophone senior’s building (160 Charlotte) 

Municipal representatives (2 interviews or 1 focus group) 

Seniors’ Social and Recreation Clubs:

• Cumberland Township
• City of Gloucester
• City of Kanata
• City of Nepean
• Township of Osgood
• City of Ottawa
• Rideau Township
• City of Vanier
• West Carleton Township

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Seniors Focus Groups

From September to March, seven focus groups were held with seniors. In our focus group compositions we tried to have a broad representation of seniors in Ottawa-Carleton. We included seniors who were:

• frail and needed help for personal care
• independent and mobile seniors
• younger and older seniors
• francophones and anglophones
• different socio-economic levels
• active in community programs
• more isolated seniors

The issues identified by seniors were:

• access to information and communication
• advocacy
• access to health care and home care
• transportation and mobility
• safety and security
• loneliness and alienation versus community building

Other Focus Groups

Two focus groups were held with service providers from different organizations.

The issues identified by service providers were:

• access to services
• coordination of services
• insufficient home care and respite care
• translation for cultural groups
• physicians' lack of training and education on seniors' issues
• special transportation (para transpo)
• housing accessibility
• education for seniors on community services

We revised reports and conducted brief interviews to collect municipal representatives perspectives.

Action Phase

The Council on Aging, in Ottawa-Carleton, is currently working on several of the issues that were identified in the focus groups. For instance, the Council on Aging held a community forum on home care issues. The recommendations made during this forum will be included in the study report and should prove to be useful in the action phase.

The COA has a committee working on transportation issues. Advocacy is an issue that was recently addressed in a COA project. A workshop and a manual entitled: "How to get what you need" was developed. The tool this project chose to distribute to seniors is called "The Advokit". It was developed by Penticton Advocacy Network and the COA had received permission to translate it into french. The Coordinating Committee feels this report is the equivalent of the community report we are to write about how seniors can affect change.

So, for Ottawa, the action phase will take place in conjunction with related COA activities. The issues that aren't being addressed by the Council on Aging will require more action planning by the Coordinating Committee.

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General
Advisory Committee

Coordinating Committee Reports order a printed copy