Age Friendly Parks Checklist

Status: Ongoing

London Canada

Print this page City population: 42232424% over 60Practice started in 2013

Summary

In response the community priority of improving the age-friendliness of London parks, the Age Friendly London Network – Outdoor Spaces & Buildings working group partnered with students at Western University to develop an Age Friendly Parks Checklist. The purpose of the checklist is to provide a standardized measurement of the amenities and conditions of London parks so that the working group could make informed recommendations on park upgrades and accessibility improvements. The students reviewed peer-reviewed and grey literature as well as examined Age Friendly Parks Checklists from other communities (most notably the Philadelphia Age Friendly Parks checklist) in order to identify the barriers and facilitators to park usage among older adults. Under the guidance of the Outdoor Spaces & Buildings working group members, the students also conducted surveys with 89 older adults in London to gather information on park usage frequency and habits. The students and the working group members used this information to create an Age Friendly Parks checklist (adapted from the Philadelphia Age Friendly Parks Checklist, Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, 2011) with criteria that was specific and appropriate to London parks. The Western University students piloted the checklist by assessing 7 parks in the City. Then the Outdoor Spaces & Buildings working group further refined the checklist and, with the help of city staff, have assessed a total of 377 parks in London to date.The checklist assesses the essential features that make a park accessible, welcoming, safe, and pleasant for an older adult or a person of any age to visit. These features include walkability, seating, access to washrooms, availability of water fountains, park amenities (e.g. presence of picnic tables, walking loops, community garden plots, etc.), signage, safety, and access to the park (i.e. presence of designated accessible parking spaces and pick up/drop off areas, proximity of bus routes, bike racks etc.).

Website: http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnZpP-NS3NY

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Sector(s): Urban development

Desired outcome for older people:
Be mobile

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility

Other Issues: Reducing barriers to using outdoor spaces, encouraging physical activity and recreation among older adults

Contact details

Name: Dellamora, Michelle

Email address: mdellamo@london.ca

Preferred language(s): English

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

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Volunteers

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

Details on older people’s involvement: Older adults were consulted during the process of developing the checklist and also the older adult members of the working group supervised the initial student project and the subsequent progress of the project with help from City staff.

Moving forward

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

Feedback:
Increasing the amount of seating and bathrooms (especially bathrooms that are open year round) were rated as very important to older adults. Also important are separated bike paths and ample accessible parking.

Expansion plans:
We plan to continue to assess parks with the goal of assessing all the parks in London and re-assessing parks in the future to measure progress. Next steps will include creating and validating a scoring system for the Age Friendly Parks checklist and continuing to plan park improvements.

Looking back

Reflections:
The Age Friendly Parks project is ongoing, which allows the Outdoor Spaces & Buildings working group to adjust the checklist criteria as needed. Lessons learned include the importance of being patient – projects can take a while to develop and you will always find things that you’d like to improve or adjust. Also, there may be a need to develop different criteria for parks of different sizes. For example, a small neighbourhood park is not going to have the same amenities as a larger regional park that is a “”destination”” park. We would like to learn more about older adult’s desire for more structured and unstructured social activities in the parks. The student’s research revealed a desire for more programming in public meeting space and active and passive recreation or cultural activities.

Challenges:
Challenges include the time and resources required to assess the individual parks. This project requires trained volunteer or staff to travel to and from each park and administer the checklist, which involve a walking survey of each park location. Another challenge is deciding which park features are most important and deciding how to prioritize park improvements amid limited resources and competing priorities.