Friendly to Seniors program supports positive attitudes towards aging
Toronto Seniors Council assists organizations in achieving ‘Friendly to Seniors’ designation
Friday December 19, 2008 -- Jason Thompson
An initiative of the Toronto Seniors Council, the Friendly to Seniors program is helping senior citizens maintain independent lifestyles by supporting positive attitudes towards aging and assisting communities improve accessibility.
Established in 2000, the Friendly to Seniors program involves a group of senior volunteers from the Toronto Seniors Council who venture into the community to conduct a physical assessment and determine if a location is safe and free of barriers for seniors.
“Following the assessment, we suggest cost effective solutions to make a facility more friendly to seniors,” says Karin Ehrentraut, executive co-ordinator of the Toronto Seniors Council.
In addition to an assessment, Toronto Seniors Council volunteers also conduct employee workshops addressing the myths and challenges associated with aging. The workshop also discusses how a working environment might better accommodate some of those challenges.
Although the program began by working with a number of banks, restaurants and hotels in Toronto, they’ve recently set their sights on helping hospitals become friendly to seniors.
Ehrentraut says the council is proud of their associations with Toronto East General Hospital and North York General Hospital.
“Toronto East General Hospital has got a large ‘Friendly to Seniors’ logo painted in their emergency department,” Ehrentraut says. “For us, that was a real success because it meant they made a commitment to the program and to offer friendly to seniors services to their patients.”
Toronto East General Hospital has also made the Friendly to Seniors program part of orientation training for new hires in the emergency department.
North York General Hospital is also supportive of the program and has made a commitment to earn their ‘Friendly to Seniors’ designation. Ehrentraut is pleased to report that North York General Hospital plans to run all of their staff members through the program.
Through their work with the Friendly to Seniors program, Ehrentraut says the council realized they should also reach out to fellow seniors and created “Did you Know?” — a series of workshops designed to teach seniors how to identify obstacles to their independence and suggest simple solutions to improve accessibility.
“We realized what we needed to do was empower seniors to feel confident and to speak up in a positive way,” Ehrentraut says. “The program promotes the involvement of seniors in their community by giving them the confidence to address negative attitudes and lack of awareness about aging.”
Ehrentraut says the workshops have become popular and there is a desire to offer it in a language other than English.
Visit www.torontoseniorscouncil.ca or contact Karin Ehrentraut at 416-630-7000 or via e-mail at tsc(a)pathcom.com for more information on the Friendly to Seniors or Did you Know? programs.