Previously, I have passed along information about cities in Germany, England, and Australia who have developed a formal process whereby cities in those countries could advertise themselves as "a Dementia Friendly Community."  To the list I now add Belgium.  It's not that they just started, it's just that I just found my notes about their program.  The founding members where the cities of Marche, Mons, Mouseron, Providence of Liege, and their national Alzheimer's association (a veryo forward-thinking group of people).

Currently, there are many more membersand cities working on membership.  the goals of the program are to persuade civil society's actors (politicians and civic leaders) to:

Messages from the other Dr. Phil, my favorite community planner/thinker.

Phil Stafford, director of the Center on Aging and Community, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University.

"Old People Give You Life!"

April 27, 2012

As a recent lunchtime stroll taught me, we have much to learn about planning communities that work for all ages and abilities!

Aside from the obvious issue of getting the utility guys to talk to the concrete guys, we must acknowledge our own mortality and stop creating Peter Pan communities where no one ever grows old.

How do we do this?  Let's start by creating a non-medical discourse about aging.  (Note: This blog started out as a column for the NY Times Op-Ed page.  It didn't "make the cut" as you see.)  The Times' New Old Age blog, while well researched and beautifully written, is almost totally devoted to medical issues and, appearing only in Tuesday's Science Tmes, reinforces the notion that science is going to solve the "problem" of aging.  Why not place the Times New Old Age blog in the Arts section?  Can the arts not provide a proper framework and discourse for this issue - the art of aging?

Hello, Recently I was speaking with two staff members who worked at a large, progressive, person-centered assisted living community. One of the residents in the assisted living community was "a crawler." She preferred, for reasons no one seemed to quite understand to crawl instead of walk. Over time this choice of hers became an issue within the community. Others felt uneasy watching an adult crawling from one place to another.

I have heard of folks in wheel chairs becoming a community issue in some assisted living communities, but never of someone who crawled. I do not know how involved the person who crawled was involved in the discussions of how best to deal with this issue. (Although, as you might expect, I have a strong suspicion based on conversations with folks who exhibit some disability related behavior, that this person ended up being told rather than asked to move, that his person was not a key go-to participant in the discussions of how she should be forced/voluntarily respond to either change her own behaviors that were atypical/unwanted/offensive to some of her neighbors, or move out of her community into some other community where her behaviors would not become an issues for others.)

Hello again. And this is just some of what Anne has created, does, thinks about, trains others to do, and lives and I suspect sometimes breathes. I'm going to spend almost a week with her and her programs and her students and the good folks she supports and serves. I'm very lucky!

Richard

Doings at the Center on Age & Community

October 15, 2010 by Anne Basting

This morning, as I sip my tea, I feel surprisingly calm when you consider all that is happening at the Center on Age & Community (which I direct)…