The Projects
Led by Dr. Elizabeth Russell, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Skinner, the Rural Age-Friendly Communities collaboration features a variety of projects that examine 1) rural age-friendly initiatives and the factors that may help or hinder their sustainability 2) the rural experiences of aging, housing for older people living in rural communities, and 3) the real-life implications for students of taking a university course on the psychology of aging.
Emergent Challenges and Opportunities to Sustaining Age-friendly Initiatives
Age-friendly initiatives often are motivated by a single funding injection from national or sub-national governments, frequently challenging human and financial resources at the community level. To address this problem, this project examines the challenges and opportunities to sustaining age-friendly programs in the context of a province wide Canadian age-friendly funding program. Based on a qualitative thematic content analysis of interview data with 35 age-friendly committee members drawn from 11 communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the challenges of age-friendly emerged. The results show that age-friendly sustainability may be conceptualized as an implementation gap between early development stages and long-term viability. Consistent over-dependence on volunteers and on committees’ limited capacity may create burnout, limiting sustainability and the extent to which communities can truly become ‘age-friendly’. To close this implementation gap while still remaining true to the grass-roots intention of the global age-friendly agenda, sustainable initiatives should include community champions, multi-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborations, and systemic municipal involvement.
Experts’ Perspectives on Building Sustainability into Age-Friendly Programming
This pilot project sought to engage and elicit the perspectives of community leaders in Newfoundland and Labrador who were involved in supporting their communities in becoming more age-friendly. Few studies have examined implementation processes contributing to sustainable age-friendly programming. This pilot project interviewed 11 leaders of their respective rural age-friendly programs about this challenge, laying the groundwork and testing the instruments for a larger project on the same topic. Results demonstrated that characteristics specific to individual communities were critical in ensuring the degree of success, sustainability, and determining the age-friendly trajectory of the program.
Building Sustainable Rural Age-Friendly Communities
For this project, we conducted case studies in five communities across rural Ontario who are working towards implementing a local age-friendly initiative. Each community represented a different rural typology and represented different post-needs assessment trajectories. We conducted a total of 46 interviews with age-friendly experts and leaders in all five case studies. The 46 interview participants were a diverse group of local age-friendly committee members, consisting of representation of municipal staff, older adult residents and community organization staff.
Seniors Housing Research
In collaboration with Trent Community Research Centre and Abbeyfield House Society of Lakefield , Elizabeth Russell and senior Trent psychology students Kara Rutherford, Amy Smith Laurel Pirrie and Natalie Jennings examined the feasibility and community preference for an Abbeyfield house in Lakefield, ON. We used surveys and focus groups to hear what local residents think about retiring in Lakefield and on their retirement housing needs. This collaborative research project provided Trent students with an experiential learning opportunity and provided them with a chance to put their research skills to use and importantly, to see the outcomes of their work used in practice in our community.
Services for an Aging Rural Population
Co-authored by Mark Skinner and Elizabeth Russell, the Services of an Aging Rural Population paper was published in the 2019 Rural Ontario Institutes (ROI) Rural Ontario Foresights Papers. Our foresight paper describes the importance of rural services to an aging population and provides an overview of four rural services (healthcare, housing, transportation, and recreation) that are especially relevant to and challenging to delivery for older people. The paper also provides case examples of rural Ontario communities demonstrating innovation in response to adversity by successfully addressing these service delivery challenges at the community level. .
Beyond Pedagogy: Psychology of Aging at Trent University
Lead by Elizabeth Russell (Trent University) and Éric Thériault (Cape Breton University) from 2018-2020, this project examined how undergraduate students’ attitudes towards older adults and the aging process may have been influenced following the completion of a Psychology of Aging course. Results show that the courses created “age-conscious students'“ who expressed a deeper understanding of the aging process, a reduction in and awareness of ageism and an enhanced personal connection with aging
