A vibrant, elder-friendly community acknowledges and celebrates our in/dependence with one another. It honors the lifelong interplay between dependence and independence, and the factors that affect our in/dependence – age, health, income, knowledge, education, support systems, etc.

Elder-friendly communities recognize that family members, neighbors, and friends provide the greatest amount of help to frail older adults. An elder-friendly community acknowledges the role of caregivers, and provides information, education, and support for them.

We acknowledge and celebrate our in/dependence with one another.

Caregivers are informed, educated, acknowledged, and supported.

2007 Priorities:

• “Acknowledge and celebrate our in/dependence with one another”, and “Caregivers are informed, educated, acknowledged and supported”
• Awareness campaign to identify caregivers (framing “caregiver” as a positive concept)
• Develop strategy for using the media to help caregivers self-identify (web, newspapers, educational programs in schools and faith communities)
• Identify a list of programs already in place to assist caregivers, grow that list, and solicit groups to expand caregiver services throughout the County

2007 Accomplishments

This group split into two work groups to address the separate issues of 1) Transportation and 2) Caregiving.

The Transportation Work Group created a guide to transportation services in Boulder County. This guide is currently being printed and will be available soon.

The Caregiver Work Group is currently developing a comprehensive caregiver website, sponsored by Aging Services Foundation of Boulder County.

For more detailed information, please view the Report to Community.