Housing and Lifestyle Choices of living Independently in a Community of Mutual Support.

The Town hall meeting highlights of Keeping Dignity Alive are reported on the CBC web page. Please check out this site http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/kda/guests.html for issues on ageing, transportation, caregivers and the actual state of Ontario caregiving for seniors.

From the CBC Town Hall Series; "In the next fifty years, Statistics Canada estimates that 1 in 10 Canadians will be over the age of 80.

In the next decade alone, the number of seniors aged 65 and over is expected to surpass the number of children for the first time in the country's history.

From February 27 to March 5, CBC Radio One examined the complex and often emotional issues that are arising as we grow old. "

"This included the following questions:

»How well is the health care system serving our seniors who want to live at home?

»What efforts have you made to avoid moving into an institution?

»How difficult is it to help your aging parents maintain their independence in the midst of your own busy lives?

»What special issues do elderly immigrants face?

»What programs and initiatives seem to be working and what more needs to be done?

Keeping Dignity Alive - The Struggle to Support Seniors in Their Own Homes provided a forum to discuss these questions."

Gail Acton is a consultant who assists adult children developing strategies to care for ageing parents, curriculum for schools to train caregivers with standards and a certification process towards providing Front Line Health Care Workers, offering affordable housing solutions for the ageing populace with Abigail Homes, helping seniors accessing in-home care, arranging live-in caregivers through Community Care Solutions, and absentee care.  Gail Acton is founder of the PSW program established in Ontario and prior to working on standards for front line health care workers she has designed curriculum for the workplace and is a strong advocate for freedom to live independently as a Soaring Sage