The Ontario AFC Planning Guide
The Creating a More Inclusive Ontario: Age-Friendly Community Planning Guide For Municipalities and Community Organizations is intended for municipalities, community organizations and others working to develop and support Age Friendly Communities (AFCs) in Ontario. It offers a widely used and comprehensive approach to planning, implementing and evaluating community programs that are intended to foster self-determination, inclusiveness and accountability. The guide consists of three separate documents to support your AFC development process: Planning Guide, Diverse Populations Addendum, and Age-Friendly Community Planning Toolkit.
If you have any questions about these resources, please contact Sarah Webster, by phone 1-844-276-5756 or email websters@providencecare.ca.
PLANNING GUIDE
The planning guide combines emerging research with what Ontario communities have learned from their Age-Friendly Community (AFC) initiatives. It offers a widely used and comprehensive approach to planning, implementing and evaluating community programs that are intended to foster self-determination, inclusiveness and accountability.
This guide provides information about, and resources for, each of the interconnected steps in the process which form the main sections of the guide:
- Step 1: Define Local Principles
- Step 2: Assess Need
- Step 3: Develop Action Plan
- Step 4: Implement and Evaluate
- Maintain Momentum and Sustain Success
Becoming an Age-Friendly Community is an iterative and ongoing process that complements and fits into existing planning and development work in municipalities.
The revised guide emphasizes the importance of promoting sustainability for AFCs and includes new items such as:
• Getting to Outcomes® (GTO) implementation framework.
• sustainability planning framework.
• community tips from members of local AFCs who have had experience with the steps in the process (offered throughout the guide).
• case studies showing what communities have done to improve age-friendliness across the eight domains. Each case describes the initiative, program partners, funding, challenges, impact and plans for sustainability.
A list of resources, navigation guide and glossary of key terms are also included.
DIVERSE POPULATIONS ADDENDUM
The Diverse Populations Addendum is one of two companion documents to the Creating a More Inclusive Ontario: Age-Friendly Community Planning Guide for Municipalities and Community Organizations.
Ontario is a province rich in diverse history and culture and has many unique rural and small urban communities, ethno-cultural immigrant and Indigenous communities that all have aging populations embedded within them. This resource offers detailed information about three populations:
- small urban/rural communities
- older immigrants
- Indigenous peoples.
It includes factors to consider when engaging them in your work to create inclusive and accessible age-friendly communities.
AGE FRIENDLY COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT
The Age-Friendly Community Planning Toolkit is one of two companion documents to the Creating a More Inclusive Ontario: Age-Friendly Community Planning Guide for Municipalities and Community Organizations.
This toolkit includes tools and templates to support your work throughout the process to create an inclusive and accessible Age-Friendly Community. When the guide references a tool or template from this document, the word ‘Toolkit’ will appear in parentheses.