In 2015, the County of Simcoe received funding from the Government of Ontario for its Age-friendly Community Planning Grant Program. The funding was used to conduct a comprehensive community needs assessment and develop a report outlining priorities and areas for future planning. The results were used to develop the County’s Positive Aging Strategy, which guides municipal and community service providers in delivering age-friendly infrastructure, planning, services, and programs.
The County identified 141 key priorities and launched numerous initiatives as part of the Simcoe County Positive Aging Strategy. Some examples of programs implemented in response to our community survey include:

• the Age-Friendly Seniors Housing Grant, which has a yearly allocation of $500,000 with the goal of assisting older adults to age in place and provide accessible upgrades to their home, for example, stair lifts, ramps, accessible showers, dementia safety design;
• the Municipal Grant which provides seed funding to local municipalities through an annual distribution of $50,000 to support municipal age-friendly projects;
• the Municipal Champions’ meetings were put in place to share what is happening in the community and share best practices;
• Recognition Awards (Individuals and Businesses) through focusing on raising awareness about the needs of older adults in the community and making their business more age-friendly, and to recognize individuals who are doing outstanding work in the community to make the County of Simcoe more age-friendly; and
• the Age-Friendly Community Advisory Committee which has been a guiding force in the implementation of many of these initiatives. They are our voice in the community and provide valuable feedback during our quarterly meetings where we discuss and share all the great age-friendly work taking place.

The Simcoe County 2023 Age-Friendly Community Survey was recently completed to gather information from participants 60 and older, their caregivers and community support services. The goal of this survey was to collect feedback from older adults to understand their most pressing age-friendly priorities in our communities and measure age-friendly program awareness. We are in the process of analyzing the survey results and completing the updated framework with key initiatives that have been completed from the 2017-2023 Positive Aging Strategy. The information will be presented to the public through a final report and support our next Simcoe County Positive Aging Strategy five-year age-friendly action plan. The County is also planning community consultations through stakeholder interviews, focus groups and town halls to further explore opinions of older adults that will inform future planning and the County’s age-friendly strategy.