AFC webinar video: Building resilient, age-friendly communities

ByPatrick Dunne

It is a familiar crossroads for many local governments and community organizers: a successful grant-funded program reaches its end, and the momentum begins to stall. On April 28, BC Healthy Communities hosted a webinar featuring Professor Mario Paris and BCHC’s AFC Program Lead Alyssa Roehrich to address this exact challenge, shifting the focus from “securing the next grant” to building permanent, community-led resilience.

A Global Demographic Shift
The urgency of this work is grounded in staggering data. Professor Paris highlighted that by 2050, the global population of those aged 65 and over is expected to double – growing from 700 million to 1.5 billion. In fact, by mid-century, one in six people globally will be over 65. This fundamental restructuring of society impacts everything from urban planning to healthcare, made more complex by the increasing vulnerability of older adults to climate change.

Beyond Grants: The Community Building Framework
To survive these shifts, Paris argues we must move away from top-down, project-based models toward a Community Building Framework. This approach prioritizes:

  • Empowerment: Moving older adults from “service recipients” to co-designers and guardians of community action.
  • Institutionalization: Embedding age-friendly principles directly into municipal zoning bylaws, recurring budgets and strategic plans.
  • Cross-Sector Partnerships: Breaking down silos so that age-friendly goals are shared across all departments, from public works to recreation.

By treating age-friendliness as a permanent infrastructure rather than a temporary program, initiatives can survive political shifts and the end of formal funding cycles.

Launching the BC Age-friendly Communities (AFC) Recognition Program
The webinar also marked an exciting milestone: the launch of the BCHC Age-Friendly Communities Recognition Program. AFC Program Lead Alyssa Roehrich detailed how this initiative provides BC municipalities and Indigenous governments with a formal mechanism to celebrate progress and maintain momentum.

Recognized communities receive a provincial letter of commendation, a digital seal for their platforms, and access to national networks. The application requires a clear “bottom-up” approach, including a council resolution and a published action plan based on the WHO’s eight domains of age-friendliness.

Moving Forward
Whether addressing rural transportation through regional volunteer partnerships or integrating dementia-friendly frameworks into broader community plans, the message was clear: sustainability is found in relationships, not just revenue.

For those who missed the live event, resources and application tips for the Recognition Program are now available here on the BCHC website.

Or read the resource sheet here.