Access to resources through community engagement

Summary

In the spring of 2019, the City of Mill Valley Recreation Department introduced the first ever, Mill Valley Age Friendly Resource Fair. This fair was held at the Mill Valley Community Center, it included over 30 local service providers, and was attended by over 150 people in its first year. The fair aimed toward education of older adults as well as the family and friends of older adults in this community. It evolved from a perceived community need of increased community engagement related to local, older adult services.

Service providers included a wide variety of local vendors including but not limited to: ways to age in place including City of Mill Valley planning division zoning and permit updates related to second unit dwellings; an home matching agency assisting older adults with finding co-inhabitants who can offset living expenses; travel services geared tailored to older adults; local food delivery and produce suppliers; and Police and Fire safety and welfare information geared toward older adults. The City partnered with local community agencies that play a large role in championing older active adult social, transportation, and housing services this community. The major senior living community, The Redwoods, attended the fair as well as engaged their community to attend. Additionally a local, non-profit, organization called the Mill Valley Villages which is focused on providing aging adults in our community with a network of community and support, attended and promoted the event.

The Southern Marin Age Friendly Resource Fair was considered a big success in its first year and our community collectively decided to bring the fair back in 2020.

2019 Mill Valley Age Friendly Resource Fair

Website: http://www.millvalleyrecreation.org/special_events/community_events/mill_valley_age_friendly_fair.htm

Key facts

Main target group: Both younger and older people (i.e. intergenerational)

Other target group(s): Friends and family of older people

Sector(s): Health, Housing, Information and communication, Long-term care, Other, Social protection, Transportation

Desired outcome for older people:
Learn, grow and make decisions

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Ageing in place
Dementia
Disasters and emergencies
Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)
Inclusion
Participation
Technologies

Contact details

Name: Danielle Staude

Email address: dstaude@cityofmillvalley.org

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Other

Other project lead: Recreation Department

Older people’s involvement: Older people were consulted during the planning process

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: No

Do you plan to evaluate your age-friendly practice? Yes

Feedback:
Feedback from our aging adult community was that the Age Friendly Fair was a successful first attempt at creating an avenue for receiving resources, education, and information through community engagement.

Expansion plans:
Yes. In 2020, we plan to engage additional local aging service vendors as well as expand the marketing and community outreach for this event in order to draw a larger audience to the fair. We intend on coordinating ride services with one of our local community partners who will provide transportation to aging adults upon request.

Looking back

Reflections:
In our first ever fair, it would have been helpful to be more aware of transportation challenges and regular schedules of active older adults. We learned in our first year that in future years we should time the fair with a heavily programmed older adult day in order to maximize and take advantage of older adults already being on-site at the Community Center. We also learned that we should coordinate transportation services to the fair for older adults with our local aging adult transportation service providers.

Challenges:
Challenges for the first ever Mill Valley Age Friendly Resource Fair included broadening awareness of the term, “Age Friendly”, within our community. As the City of Mill Valley introduces the concept of Age Friendly through marketing campaigns, incorporating the term in to long-term planning documents, and engaging City departments, staff, and community leaders the awareness and embrace of, “Age Friendly City”, is beginning to slowly take effect.