Examining an occupational perspective in a rural Canadian age-friendly consultation process.

Abstract

The age-friendly community movement is a community-level approach to promoting seniors' health that has yet to be thoroughly examined from an occupational perspective. Through the application of the Canadian Practice Process Framework to an age-friendly consultation process, the authors examined how age-friendly community consultations may provide strategies for occupational therapists to strengthen their work with communities. A consultation with a rural Canadian community was guided by the Age-Friendly Rural/Remote Communities Initiative. Focus groups were held with 35 older adults to identify age-friendly features of the community. Twenty key informants who provide services to seniors were also interviewed individually. Following the community consultation, we examined the relationship between the age-friendly community consultation process and occupational therapy community development practice processes using the Canadian Practice Process Framework. The steps of the consultation process paralleled the occupational therapy practice process, with occupational issues implicitly identified in the age-friendly consultation. The age-friendly consultation process emphasised the importance of collaborative partnerships and the need for occupational therapists to adopt a facilitative rather than leadership role. Skills that enable occupation were used throughout this age-friendly consultation. The study suggests that the process of this age-friendly community consultation has relevance to occupational therapy theory and practice, and can provide a useful framework for collaborative consultative processes when working with communities.