INNISFAIL – The town has now put into municipal law its five-year goal to become an age-friendly community.
On March 8, town council passed the Age-Friendly Community Committee Bylaw, and approved the creation of the Age-Friendly Community Committee (AFCC) to replace the Age-Friendly Action Plan Steering Committee.
“What this means now is that the work we started in 2016 with the Seniors Needs Assessment and then the work of the ad hoc committee to review that assessment and make recommendations to mayor and council, means we are now in a position to start moving and actioning some of those items,” said Karen Bradbury, the town’s community and social development coordinator, who made a presentation to council on March 8.
She said with the goal to make Innisfail an age-friendly community there is a great deal of work ahead for the newly established AFCC.
“There are different pieces to this puzzle that we need to work towards,” she said, noting there is a toolkit from the province to work through to achieve recognition at the provincial level as an age-friendly community. “Right now, with this today (March 8) council is committing to become an age-friendly community.”
The approved bylaw outlines the mandate, membership, operation and duties of the AFCC. Bradbury said the first priority is to assemble new AFCC members, which will include one town councillor, four representatives of community organizations and two members-at-large.They will be tasked to develop a community action plan, which will set priorities on areas for going forward and their starting points.
The committee’s work will be guided by Sandy Wacker, the town’s new community supports and age-friendly facilitator who was hired last fall to support the work of making Innisfail more age-friendly.
The work by the AFCC will focus on outdoor spaces, recreation and buildings, as well as transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information and community support and health services.
