Berkshire County Residential Aging In Place Workbook & Video

Status: Ongoing

Age Friendly Berkshires United States of America

Print this page City population: 13000050% over 60Practice started in 2016

Summary

In early 2015, the Age Friendly Berkshires county survey was conducted and almost 2,500 responses were received from adults age 50 and over who described their experiences living in Berkshire County. Overwhelmingly, respondents indicated that they wanted to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible, or if that was not possible to live in/near their present community. Additionally, many older adults reported that they lived in homes that lacked age friendly and accessible features, and that they anticipated they would have to invest in these features to remain in their own homes.

A guide to assess and plan for residential renovations was created to allow older people to age independently, safely, and comfortably in their own home. The workbook and video are available attached and also on Age-friendly Berkshires here. The workbook is geared to homeowners wishing to conduct a self-assessment of their home property, through an age-friendly lens. There is no special skill needed to conduct the home assessment – the workbook is meant to be used with a pencil or pen, where a homeowner can make notes of areas of their home that need improvement. Then, homeowners can work with local home improvement contractors for more complicated changes (like adding grab bars in the bath or changing the height of kitchen counters) to estimate the cost of making the desired improvement. Some improvements, like adding additional lighting, changing the drawer pulls to a more comfortable type, or removing clutter to prevent tripping hazards, are low or no-cost strategies that any homeowner can achieve.

Website: http://agefriendlyberkshires.com

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): Homeowners of any age, interested in safely aging in place

Sector(s): Housing

Other sector(s): Landlords of multi-family properties who house older adults

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Ageing in place

Contact details

Name: McDonough, Peg

Email address: mmcdonough@berkshireplanning.org

Preferred language(s): English

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

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Other

Other project lead: Berkshire Regional Planning Commission as backbone organization for Age Friendly Berkshires

Others involved in the project:

Local authorities
Older People’s Association
Social or health care provider
Private sector

How collaboration worked: In early 2016, three Aging in Place Forums were held to elicit from participants the barriers to and potential remedies for, supportive aging in one’s own home. The result was the creation of the Berkshire County Aging in Place workbook, a self-assessment guide for homeowners to use to select and plan home modifications aimed at increasing physical safety for aging homeowners. Originally, staff contacted the National Association of Home Builders and their local chapter in Springfield, Massachusetts (MA) to determine if a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) training could be held in the area. (CAPS is a national certification program that trains contractors and design professionals about aging in place issues). There are only a few professionals that are CAPS certified in the county, and we hoped to bring a training in the area that would create more. Funding for the project came from MA Association of Health Boards and the MA Dept. of Public Health as well as a small grant from W.B. Plunkett Hospital. While all the funding for the project is in the form of “mini-grants”, this project has the potential to create a huge impact in the daily life of older people in the Berkshires and spur the creation of age friendly housing which will reduce the potential for injury and allow folks to remain in their own homes for as long as possible.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: All of the respondents to the survey and the attendees at the 3 public forums across the county were older adults. Their collective knowledge and ability to identify specific barriers to aging in place was integral to the creation of the Workbook and video.

Moving forward

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

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

Feedback:
Overwhelmingly positive feedback. We have shared this resource for free, widely across the state and the U.S., most recently in South Carolina & Wisconsin.

Expansion plans:
The plan is to expand this practice via the local rental housing association, public housing authorities and via community outreach to 32 cities/towns in our County. The workbook is attached to this practice and is also available for free download on agefriendlyberkshires.com along with a companion video on YouTube.

Looking back

Reflections:
Age Friendly Berkshires project partners should have generated a strategy for project-roll out earlier in project development. While the Age Friendly Taskforce and Berkshire Regional Planning Commission members will now approach their respective organizations and community members, we feel this work should have been conducted earlier in the development of the workbook/video. Also, while many participated and provided input to this project in 2015, we wish we could have engaged more groups and individuals, like home improvement contractors, landlords, property managers, handymen all across our 950 square mile County. Now that the Age Friendly Berkshires Action Plan has been published, interest in our program and its benefits to businesses, municipalities, non-profits and community groups is growing rapidly. Our website is being built out to include many resources, including this workbook/video, for “how to become Age-Friendly.” We continue to distribute the Aging in Place Workbook via web link and by year end, will have delivered electronic copies of the Workbook to all thirty-two municipalities in Berkshire County, asking them to post it on each of their municipal websites for their residents to download!

Challenges:
Limited funding allowed us to only print a small number of hard copy Workbooks. Distribution was limited to electronic copies, distributed to a small set of “trainers” i.e. housing network partners, who in turn, committed to holding workshops for contractors and others. We are now able to make the workbook/video available on our website, which only went live in Dec. 2017. However, since that time the “hits” for this product have increased using social media outreach and soft advertising on the Village to Village Network website (list serve for members).