The Northern Hilltowns Consortium Consortium of Councils on Aging originally created and implemented outreach services for isolated older adults. The Consortium will be the catalyst and organizer of each town’s plans to implement the initiative. Towns in the Consortium include: Chesterfield, Worthington, Goshen, Westhampton, Williamsburg, Cummington and Plainfield. The subsequent step was to expand those programs to include representation of other people from the community, including the local churches, service providers, police etc. These efforts were a prelude to moving toward using the tools and models for the development of Age Friendly Communities. Prior to that each community relied on the COAs for a number of services including transportation, food distribution from the regional Food Bank, assistance in obtaining community services, distribution of a regional newsletter, fitness and multi generational programs, and socialization programs, to name a few. The return rate on the surveys has clustered around 30%, suggesting a strong interest in moving forward. The major issues most towns will focus on include meeting a strong need for more and improved information about events, programs, resources and better dissemination of information. Transportation is always a focus in towns in rural areas. Plans to expand handicap accessible buildings are also in place. Another issue identified was the wish for more options for safe walkability.
The potential for this initiative is to provide additional information about the challenges and strategies for working with rural communities who often have very limited part time staff on the municipal level and the Councils on Aging and a major reliance on the work of volunteers.