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Seniors Outreach
South Burnaby Neighbourhood House
Ambassadors
Presented By:
Talia Mastai, Seniors Outreach Worker
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South Burnaby
Neigbourhood House
• Established in 1996
• Community-based social service agency
• Provides a continuum of programs that promote
community
engagement
- Childcare, ESL, family support, youth leadership, community outreach,
legal
and tax clinics, seniors programs
• Mission: to make neighbourhoods better places to live
• Goal: to enable people to enhance their lives and
strengthen
their communities
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Seniors Outreach
Ambassadors
Seniors Outreach Ambassadors are a trained group of
senior volunteers (55+) who have the role of connecting
with seniors in the community to provide information
about community resources, to assist and support in
connecting with needed/wanted programs and services,
and to encourage community engagement and social
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Seniors Community
Resource Card
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The approach:
 Train
multilingual group of Ambassadors
 “Champions from within”
 Identify
 Word
and go where seniors live and congregate
of mouth as a promotional tool to spread information
 Help
isolated seniors become connected and learn about
the resources available to them
 Ongoing
education and skill development for Ambassadors
Ambassador
Demographics
• 31 active Ambassadors (South 21, North 10)
• 7 Male, 24 Female
• Aged 58-83
• Variety of major languages represented
• English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean,
Vietnamese, German, French, Dutch, Farsi, Punjabi,
Hindi
Program Statistics
June 2011-June2012
• 1936 seniors reached by Ambassadors
• 2264 seniors reached by Ambassadors & Outreach
Worker combined
• 53 new seniors participated in SBNH programs due to
connecting with outreach program (since September
How did the Ambassador
program develop?
Voices of Burnaby Seniors (VOBS) Task Force conducted
a survey in 2007 of Burnaby residents 55+ exploring housing,
transportation, health and support service needs


Led to the development of:

Seniors Community Resource Card

Seniors Outreach Worker position

Seniors Outreach Ambassador Program
COLLABORATION
is the key to success
Steering committee
VOBS
 Resource cards
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Burnaby Community Connections & SBNH
 Training
Burnaby Seniors Outreach Services Society
 The program is housed at SBNH
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
Funded by United Way of the Lower Mainland
And continues to be…
How do we reach seniors who are isolated?
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That’s the challenge
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Ambassador
Outreach Activities
 Presentations


Apartment complexes, BC Housing sites, Independent and Assisted Living
Health Alert Program at Seniors Centres
 Community

events & festivals
Healthy Aging Fair, Cargeiver Information Fair, Festival of Lights
 Connecting

at Seniors Residences & Programs
with seniors out in the community
Coffee shops, shopping malls, grocery stores, park benches, bus stops, food
banks, churches, temples, various community organizations
 Accompanying
outreach worker on home visits
Successful outreach is dependent
upon a welcoming and inclusive
receiving end
“I know that the program helped one
isolated senior get out of the house – ME!”
Ambassadors reported that being an Ambassador:
1) Reduced feelings of isolation and loneliness
“For me, it’s been very important and has also changed my
life. Before I just stayed home, watched Mandarin TV,
reading Mandarin books, and now I go out and speak
English. I know that the program helped one isolated senior
get out of the house - me!”
2) Increased confidence, given them “the courage to
approach and speak to others”
“After training, I find myself more open, less shy, socializing
with people, even strangers, and interacting with people of
different cultures and languages.”
4) Increased feeling of connection to Canadian culture
“Many immigrants, their English is not very good, or for
whatever reason they just stay home. The communities
often stay together and do not interact with the local culture .
Even though they live here, it’s like they live in another
country, staying within their own community. As an
ambassador, I finally feel like I really live in Canada, that I’m
really a Canadian, even though I’ve had a passport for many
years.”
5) Made them feel more connected to their community
“I find it pretty meaningful for myself to work as a volunteer, I
find that I have gotten connected to the community, because
when you retire you can feel disconnected from society.”
6) Provided further leadership and volunteer
From Ambassadors
to
Community Leaders
Hans facilitates Canadian Diabetes
Association healthy cooking workshops
Ambassadors after completing the
Translink Travel Smart for Seniors
“From the training I was linked to a
number of other organizations, like VOBS
and their transportation committee, and
informed
of
information
sessions,
conferences,
and
other
volunteer
opportunities.
Its like a snowball affect of
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information. It’s rewarding that you feel
like you are doing something positive,
through these organizations we can
influence
politics.”
Why is it working?
It’s a community approach
1)
Collaboration
2)
Peer to Peer, equipping local seniors
3)
Welcoming and inclusive receiving ends
4)
Breaking down language barriers
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5)
Training multilingual group, translating resource cards
Addressing transportation & mobility challenges
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Providing free local transportation to SBNH programs
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Connecting seniors with other transportation programs in
the community
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Thank
you!