Today nearing the end of another Global Intergenerational Week I find myself attending a session hosted by Canada’s Healthy Aging CORE with the National Intergenerational Community of Practice moderated by Betty Good from GoodLinkswhere the theme is Save the Planet which is, whatever age you are, in all our best interest. While anticipating this discussion, my thoughts also collect around the fact that the intergenerational theme found its way into several conversations this month.
Three virtual events discussed Ageing in Cities, Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) and Healthy Ageing in Long Term Care. Perhaps at first not intentionally, somehow the question of intergenerational activity arose, as if others were on the same wavelength as me when it came to chat questions for the panelists.
Even in a webinar on Social Prescribing back in March, I recall asking how referrals for social prescribing were reaching younger generations.
In the April 8thCIHR Institute of Agingsession on Ageing in Cities, when I asked about the development of intergenerational connections in NORC’s, it was Paula Rochon from Women’s College Hospital Research & Innovation Institute who responded with “this is a biggie”, noting this as a huge opportunity to be seen as a strength to build on, which led me to think what’s so darn hard about naturally occurring intergenerational conversations?
Sticking with the NORCs, as a reminder to those not familiar with this concept, a NORC typically means it’s a community designated so when a higher representation of older people, over 30 percent, reside in an apartment building or other types of neighbourhood complexes. If that is so, then math suggests that roughly 70 percent of a NORC is of other generations, which is not to assume that behaviour or connection is intergenerational in its mutigenerational composition.
In the April 14thHey Neighbour Collective session, it was the intro from Michelle Hoar that set the right tone for me when she referenced her organization as having at its root a focus on age-friendly community building, both intergenerational and intercultural. It was in an all too short breakout group that I joined in this session about building social connection in housing, that the need for intentional intergenerational connection was lively discussed.
Two days later on April 16th the session from the Aging in Community Education and Research (ACER) at Humber College, it was speaker Dr. Kim Bergeron who brought things home from another perspective with a talk on Re-imagining Healthy Ageing in Long-Term Care: Place, Purpose, and Intergenerational Connection. Here again, another different environment where a community of older adults is not naturally occurring.
It was refreshing to learn of the Long-term Care model redeveloped at the East Cumberland Lodge in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. It has a program called “Connecting Generations” that engages local high school students from an “Opportunities and Options” program which takes an intergenerational curriculum focus to help both the old and the young learn what life factors lead to better healthy ageing outcomes, and this is funded by a grant from the Entente Foundation.
All these virtual events were independent of each other but by some hand of fate a common thread wove throughout which stimulated a message for me, which is – we have an intergenerational imperative if an age-friendly longevity society is going to work for us all. As Betty Good espoused in our recent conversation, if any work in developing intergenerational practice in a community is to happen, it has much to do with intention.
