Introduction and Background

We want your suggestions on how to support the non-medical needs of Alberta’s older population. We are co-creating a Policy Roadmap with government partners to address these issues. Our aim is to shape provincial policy through collaboration among community-based senior serving (CBSS) organizations and partners in health, housing, education, and municipalities.

Below are the priority areas for this work:

  • Support sector development - Focuses on strengthening the overall structure and sustainability of the CBSS sector, including funding models, governance, and alignment with provincial systems.​
  • Strengthening partnerships - Explores how to better integrate the CBSS sector with health, housing, and social systems through formal partnerships, shared planning, and coordinated service delivery.​
  • Workforce development - Addresses current and future workforce needs, including recruitment, retention, training, and career pathways to support delivery of non-medical services. This applies to both paid and voluntary work.
  • Data & information sharing - Focuses on improving how data/information is collected, shared, and used across sectors to support coordination, planning, and better outcomes for older adults.​
  • Quality and assurance - Develops standards, frameworks, and accountability mechanisms to ensure consistent, high-quality, person-centered services across the CBSS sector. ​
  • Research & evaluation - Identifies research priorities and evaluation approaches to build evidence, inform policy decisions, and strengthen understanding of non-medical supports.
  • Social prescribing - to ensure the key building blocks are established to scale social prescribing throughout the province. Key building blocks may include developing appropriate infrastructure, strengthening key partnerships, ensuring that sustainable resources are available for program delivery and the reporting of key performance metrics and outcomes.

What is Meant by Policy?
  • Public policy refers to official decisions that guide the activities of governments at the local, municipal, provincial, or federal levels.
  • For example, public policy decisions can be expressed as legislation, resolutions, regulations, by-laws, appropriations, court decisions, etc.
  • Public policy refers not only to decisions, but also to the programs and administrative practices undertaken by governments.
What are We Asking of You?
  • Tell us about the perspective you bring.
  • Choose which priority areas you want to comment on. You will be given the opportunity to comment or skip a section.
  • Share your ideas on supporting the non-medical needs of older Albertans in each of these priority areas.
Providing your feedback will take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete and will be accessible until June 16, 2026. All information you provide will remain confidential, and only aggregated (grouped) data will be shared with the Project Team, Steering Committee, and Working Groups.

Note that your survey answers will be saved if you are unable to complete the survey at one time or would like to edit your responses.

If you have any questions about the Policy Roadmap project, please contact Beth Mansell, Project Manager, Healthy Aging Alberta, at beth.mansell@calgaryunitedway.org.

If you have any questions about the process, please contact Heather Sharpe from NZA-MC at heather@nzadvisory.com.

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