Project Partners

Senior Centered ESL Program will be offered to people who are 55 years of age or more and who possess poor English language skills. The program will be structured around informational materials and workshops as well as enjoyable activities selected by the participants.

Catholic Centre for Immigrants-Ottawa is an immigrant settlement agency, which has been facilitating the integration of newcomers into Canadian society for over 50 years. It possesses extensive experience working with newcomers who have limited official language skills and has successfully provided services to improve the English and French language skills of newcomer’s seniors.

Backbone Organization will carry out the functions of administration, communication and evaluation for this project. Three types of communication functions will be essential: facilitating communication amongst the project partners, educating and collaborating with community organizations and educating the general public via, web site, brochures, magazine, and more.

The Council on Aging of Ottawa has a 40 year history of advocacy, education, planning and research on behalf of seniors in the Ottawa area and is recognized as an organization capable of speaking on behalf of the needs of seniors in Ottawa. The Council on Aging has well established linkages with all of the partnering organizations and is well positioned with its city-wide reach and connection with seniors.

Elder Abuse Response and Referral Service will use a collaborative approach to impact the target beneficiary, by engaging impact plan partners, essential service agencies, seniors and other providers of senior services in Ottawa. Through education and awareness, training, intake, case management and elder mediation the project will achieve the prevention and intervention outcomes in collaboration with other providers of senior services. The goal is to reach, identify, respond, support, engage and improve the overall well-being of seniors.

Nepean, Rideau and Osgoode Community Resource Centre has been delivering the Elder Abuse Response and Referral Service in Ottawa for 8 years. NROCRC and the Ottawa Police Service are the lead agencies in Ottawa on elder abuse intervention and are complimented with staff who are specifically trained to deal with elder abuse.

Healthy Connections; Healthy Communities will target four of the five focus groups, starting from a program focus of low-income seniors living in six Ottawa Community Housing low-income senior’s buildings. From this starting point, the project itself will focus on seniors who are both low-income and living with disabilities, low-income and living with language barriers, low-income and living in situations of abuse, and those whose needs overlap several or all of these categories.

Ottawa West Community Support is a non-profit, charitable organization that has been supporting seniors in Ottawa’s West end and across the region through a variety of in-home and community-based services for more than 30 years. In this project OWCS will be partnering with 16 other organizations that span the breadth of health service, social housing, ethno-cultural service, educational, Community Safety, and Local Food initiatives.

Creating Community for Isolated Ethno-cultural Seniors is a collaborative project to reduce isolation for immigrant and ethno-cultural seniors, many of whom are also living on low income or with disabilities. Grassroots ethno-cultural groups who have strong contacts with these isolated seniors will collaborate to provide culturally appropriate recreation, group volunteering and community events for their members to build strong social networks for sustainable peer support & well-being. They will provide information workshops and individual service navigation/coaching to link seniors from their community with mainstream services which support social opportunities and healthy aging at home, resulting in increased access to and use of these services. The Social Planning Council will coordinate the partners, manage the project and resources, coordinate the common evaluation, expand partnerships and resources and increase the impact and sustainability of the work by providing capacity building and communications support.

Social Planning Council of Ottawa brings core organizational capacity and the ethno-cultural groups bring expertise on the needs of their community members and in program delivery. The Social Planning Council of Ottawa has a strong record of successful multi-year collaborative projects with ethno-cultural groups, in which SPC has done the research and project management and the groups delivered the programs. Most recently, we managed and evaluated a national demonstration project funded by SDPP (NHSP) in which we collaborated with a smaller number of ethno-cultural groups who delivered 54 activities (30 for seniors) serving 3,026 vulnerable ethno cultural and immigrant residents. The project improved mental health and inclusion of vulnerable seniors and the capacity of the groups.

Strengthening Senior Neighbourhood Networks

Built on the principals of community development with the objective to help seniors at the neighbourhood level. The foundation of the project builds on the strengths and capacities of seniors. Phase One will focus on developing approach and strategies to form the foundation of the work. We will create a cocktail of services and strategies and approaches aimed at identifying and engaging isolated seniors. Phase two will expand and develop a community of practice. With the ultimate goal, of reaching 15 identified low income neighbourhood areas we will support seniors to develop, promote, implement, and deliver and evaluation initiatives in their community.

South-East Ottawa Community Health Centre has a mandate to support vulnerable seniors in our catchment and are engaged in numerous activities to support this population (PCO, Vulnerable Seniors Partnership, Health Links, Community and Home Support, Seniors Health Promotion, Board member of Geriatric Psychiatry Community Services of Ottawa). We use the Community Development approach to identify and engage vulnerable communities and empower them to build capacity and resiliency (No Communities Left Behind, Community Development Framework). All of our agency services are built on the principles of health equity.

Reducing Rural Isolation is an outreach model designed to target rural older-adult residents, in a wraparound service targeted at reducing social isolation by: (a) Increasing social capital and capacity of the community to support, resolve conflict and refer to existing and enhanced services and, (b) Strengthening the capacity of rural Ottawa seniors and community members in caring for older adults, to heighten awareness of existing supports, to provide training and create new opportunities for reducing isolation.

Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre offers a vast array of community, health and social services and programs to benefit individuals of all ages in the west end of Ottawa including Goulbourn, Kanata and West Carleton area. WOCRC is committed to helping seniors and adults with a physical disability live independent, active and meaningful lives. WOCRC provides caregiver support, day services, foot care, meals on wheels, service arrangement, social and congregate dining, transportation to medical appointments, snow removal service and primary care outreach to seniors.