The Cardinia Shire Age Friendly Strategy (AFS) is aligned to the Council Plan, the Cardinia Shire Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2013–17, with goals and objectives developed to address the priority areas including housing, transport, social inclusion and support.

Council has a lead role to respond to population ageing within the community to:

• ensure our community and business stakeholders understand the age-friendly communities framework
• collaborate and work in partnership with individuals, community groups, organisations and service providers to identify the needs of the ageing community
• develop partnerships with local community and business stakeholders to implement actions to address priority issues
• build capacity of the local community and workforce to respond to local issues
• celebrate the contribution of our older population.

Council recognizes residents’ health and well-being as key challenges for the future and will continue to engage with the community and assist in setting the strategic direction and decision making to support an ageing population. Aligned to the 2013–17 Council Plan and Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan, the AFS responds to our ageing population by creating an environment to enable our residents to live in security, maintain their health, and be able to fully participate and be an integral part of the community.

Council is committed to effective and appropriate community engagement. Council acknowledges that ongoing dialogue with the community and stakeholders through well-planned, inclusive, responsive and accessible community consultation enables meaningful input into decision-forming processes. Comprehensive engagement was undertaken with stakeholders, local community members and the support of the Positive Ageing Steering Committee to develop the Age Friendly Strategy 2015-19

In the first year of the current strategy, Council is adopting a place based approach to identify and engage with key stakeholders to develop a greater understanding of local communities, to identify and gain commitment from key local stakeholders to participate in a forum that will involve the recruitment of local residents to a working party/reference group who share a passion for making their community more age friendly. This will utilise the knowledge and skills of the local community to create ownership around the strengths of the community and develop sustainable outcomes .