Age-Friendly Ecosystem Collaboration Toolkit
Introduction
The promise of an Age-Friendly Ecosystem—a network of individuals and organizations that share the goal of improving quality of life and health for older adults—lies in the implementation of successful multi-sector collaboration. At present, practitioners are most often using sector-specific frameworks and strategies to promote age-friendly solutions. These well-intentioned efforts often operate in parallel, not collectively.
Trust for America’s Health is working with national partners and state leaders across the U.S. to identify, develop, and promote opportunities and pathways to align these strategies and support the development of collaborative cross-sector solutions to enhance the impact of a broad range of partners and result in improved quality of life for older adults.
The Age-Friendly Ecosystem Collaboration Toolkit offers practical strategies and resources designed to help foster understanding, break down silos, and facilitate effective collaboration for leaders from across the Age-Friendly Ecosystem. The goal is to move from isolated progress to collective action that benefits older adults, their families, and caregivers across the country.
Age-Friendly Ecosystem 101
An Age-Friendly Ecosystem is a network of individuals and organizations that share the goal of improving quality of life and health for older adults. An ecosystem represents a wide range of sectors, including, but not limited to, public health, health care, community, academia, aging services, business, and faith communities. Learn more about the Age-Friendly Ecosystem and the primary six sectors represented on the graphic.
Age-friendly providers are doing transformational work in communities, cities, counties and states, within healthcare systems, in public health departments, through organizations delivering home and community-based services, in academic settings, and in workplaces around the world. The challenge is for providers and organizations representing each of these sectors to work collectively to deliver even more impact through cross-sectoral collaboration.
Related Resources
Age-Friendly Ecosystem State Snapshots
The Age-Friendly Ecosystem State Snapshots provide information about the status and growth of the older adult population in every state and DC, as well as the status of age-friendly adoption across multiple sectors, including public health, health systems, states and communities, and academia. The Snapshots may be used to advocate for older adult programs and services, as well as to advance multi-sector collaboration.
A full PDF of all Snapshots can be accessed here, or an individual state Snapshot can be accessed by clicking on the state here and then clicking on the state’s “Download State Snapshot” button.
Age-Friendly Ecosystem Map
The Age-Friendly Ecosystem map page provides information on age-friendly sectors in each state. It is intended to be a collaboration tool to identify potential partners to engage in projects that support older adults and caregivers. The map has recently been updated and now includes Age-Friendly Universities.
Hosting An Age-Friendly Collaboration Workshop
The goal of an Age-Friendly Ecosystem is to create a harmonious system of support for older adults, their families and caregivers, where data can be shared, programs work in alignment, and care is coordinated, resulting in stronger supports and better outcomes.
Hosting a collaboration workshop can be a concrete and powerful step toward real, lasting multi-sector work. It can help to build trust, identify common goals, and commit to tangible strategies to improve the quality of life for older adults in a community. Age-Friendly Ecosystem Collaboration Workshops are designed to help practitioners bridge silos, align efforts, and move good intentions toward collaborative action that makes aging well both possible and sustainable.
The Collaboration Workshop is informed by three distinct guides. Related resources are linked within each guide:
Please email the AFPHS team at afphs@tfah.org if you have any questions, feedback, or need additional guidance.
Acknowledgements
Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation, is leading efforts to develop strategies, tools, and resources to harmonize efforts across an Age-Friendly Ecosystem. Further funding is needed to advance these efforts through a cohesive and comprehensive initiative. We welcome your participation. For more information or to discuss how your organization can support this work, please contact Megan Wolfe at mwolfe@tfah.org or Karon Phillips at kphillips@tfah.org.
The Age-Friendly Ecosystem Collaboration Toolkit was developed by Trust for America’s Health in partnership with funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation.
TFAH also acknowledges the significant contributions of Jody Shue, without whose expertise this toolkit would not have been possible.