MINUTES – PUBLIC – Seniors Commission – 5th meeting – November 21, 2024 – 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Michèle Osborne, Director General of the Centre Action Générations des Aînés Vallée-de-la-Lièvre (CAGAVL), leads the first part of the presentation and explains the context in which the various outreach workers operate. The presentation is divided into several parts covered by various stakeholders of this program. The elements presented are as follows:

• The movement of Community Centres for Seniors (CCA)
• Actions of the CCA: curbing the loss of autonomy throughout the aging continuum
• The history of CCA involvement
• Active projects in 2023-2024
• The definition of an ITMAV (Outreach work initiative for vulnerable seniors)
• Positioning in the support continuum for aging individuals
• Characteristics of an ITMAV
• The outreach worker – Their role
• Some observations concerning monitoring, identification, and awareness actions
• Issues, challenges encountered, and limits of ITMAV action
• Some statistics
• Presentation of the ITMAV outreach workers of Gatineau and the sectors served

The importance for outreach workers to establish a relationship of trust with seniors is highlighted. Once this relationship is established, the goal is to link them with existing resources that meet their needs, and to promote reconciliation with family and friends when possible. Outreach workers must have the eyes of interveners to properly grasp the lived experience and needs of the senior, but they are not social workers. As examples, outreach workers help with making medical appointments, they organize weekly thematic meetings as well as other socialization activities, they help seniors complete administrative procedures and in their search for housing, etc. Outreach workers work in close collaboration with the CISSSO and also ensure the defense of their rights in general.

Exchange period

Questions are asked regarding the collaboration that exists between outreach workers and the health and social services network. It is highlighted on one hand that outreach workers have privileged access to the CISSSO to report certain problems experienced by seniors, but that, on the other hand, there are challenges linked in particular to staff turnover in the network. It must also be mentioned that sometimes, seniors who experience heavy problems refuse to collaborate with network interveners. But all in all, there is good collaboration between the CISSSO and the outreach workers, and the contribution of the latter for the home maintenance of seniors is recognized. We also wonder what the expected role of the City is regarding the ITMAV: it is actually, as much on the part of the elected officials as the administration, to make the initiative known and to be its spokesperson in our respective environments. We also talk about putting up posters aimed at making ITMAV services known in public places of the City such as libraries. This is already done in other places such as CLSCs, places of worship, etc.

Break from 10:18 a.m. to 10:35 a.m.