Aging in Community
Discovery Phase
Challenge
City Council directed the Innovation Team (i-team) to research the challenges faced by older adults and their caregivers in the community.
Methods
Outcomes
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Interviews
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Subject Matter Experts
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City Council Members
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Residents
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Workshops
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Centennial Senior Commission
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City Council Members
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City Staff
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Analysis
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Coding
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Thematic analysis
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Identified Housing as the key focus area
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Learned valuable insights about the older adult demographic that informed how the City might best deliver resources
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e.g. Whether a person was 65 or 85 years old, we often heard this demographic not identifying as "older adults," and would suggest they would be in this demographic in about 10 years
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Generated "How Might" questions to be the foundation of the Ideation Phase
The Process
Three Phases of Aging In Community
Discovery
Ideation
Implementation
Working with stakeholders to generate potential initiative ideas, and evaluate and prioritize ideas
Defining Aging in Community Challenges
Working with stakeholders to build and execute implementation plans
PHASE 1: DISCOVERY - Defining Aging in Community Challenges
Aging in Community involves many different topics and there are many different facets of what can be examined in each topic. In order to understand the breadth and depth of the aging ecosystem, City Staff interviewed Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), City Council Members, the City’s Senior Commission, and City residents.
Subject Matter Expert Interviews
Staff began by interviewing SMEs within the aging space to one, validate anecdotal evidence that Aging in Community is a challenge in Centennial and two, identify common challenges across eight domain areas of consideration.
Workforce/Volunteering
Transportation
Engagement
Health
Finance
Community
Housing
Caregiving
Public Official Interviews
After an initial understanding of the challenges present in Aging in Community, Staff met with City Council Members from each of the four districts in Centennial. This was an opportunity to discover similarities and differences that all the districts face in regards to Aging in Community.
After conversations with Public Officials, Staff were able to determine four domain areas as high priority across all four
districts. These four domains included: Caregiving, Housing, Transportation, and
Social (Community and Engagement).
Senior Commission Workshop
During this workshop, the Centennial Senior Commission and City Council
participants engaged in activities that enabled Staff to better understand ideal
solutions in each of the four domain areas. This revealed commonalities across
domains of what kind of solutions older adults desire and gave insight into how
common obstacles surface across various domains.
Analyzed Collected Data
Staff consolidated all the data collected up to this point and captured commonly discussed ideas on sticky notes to draw connections between stakeholder groups across the different domain areas.
During this juncture, Staff examined the four domain areas and analyzed the:
- City’s capacity to influence each domain
- Enthusiasm from Senior Commissioners, City Council, and City Staff
- Robust network of interrelated public and private providers interested in
innovative solutions
*Housing surfaced as a clear priority after the analysis was complete.
Focused Interviews with Housing Experts
Similar to the start of the research phase, Staff did another round of SME interviews,
but this time with the goal of better understanding the different facets of the housing
ecosystem in Centennial. During this round of interviews, Staff sat down with
professionals ranging from employees of assisted living communities to City Staff in
the Community Development Department.
Staff gained a better understanding of relationships between public and private older
adult housing organizations, and also, investigated what services are currently available and what the demand of those services are from older adults and those that support this demographic.
After distilling the data provided on this
round of interviews, Staff were able to
generate focused questions to ask during resident interviews. The City’s foundational questions, which led to what Staff asked residents, included:
- How can older adults stay in their suburban homes comfortably and safely?
- How can older adults move into more supportive housing arrangements, when desired?
- Once an older adult decides to move,what goes into the decision and what is the
process like?
Resident Interviews
Staff interviewed 16 residents of different ages in the older adult demographic, living in
an array of housing types with a range of physical abilities. For about an hour and a
half, residents were asked questions about:
- Support they have from family, friends,
neighbors, and organizations in
the community
- Planning for retirement and general aging
- Community activities
- The built environment around their homes
Analysis & Synthesis
Similar to the focused interviews with experts, Staff organized insights on sticky notes
to tease out commonalities of what residents most often discussed, and to what
degree during the interviews. After synthesizing all the data collected to this point, Staff was geared with How Might questions for the Ideation Phase.
1. How Might Centennial homes be more accommodating of physical limitations?
2. How Might Older adults and their families be prompted to be more proactive with
detecting problems before they’re problems?
3. How Might Aging be destigmitized and planning be encouraged?
4. How Might The quality of life of older adults improve by alleviating the pressure of
completing daily chores?
5. How Might Older adults have the freedom of having a car without having a car?
6. How Might Every older adult have a friend or have a meaningful social activity
they enjoy?