Grant: Operating Grant: Voluntary Sector Knowledge Mobilization Support Grant

Who we are: The Active Aging Society (the Society) is a non-profit based in British Columbia (BC) with a mission to promote the social, physical, and mental health of older adults. For over a decade, we have been guided by science to implement, scale, and sustain innovations that enhance older adult health outcomes. In partnership with researchers at the University of British Columbia and community-based seniors’ service (CBSS) organizations, the Society leads the scale-up of Choose to Move. With a track-record of academic collaboration, we are perfectly positioned to deliver on the proposed activity. Proposed activity: We will build off of our ‘Move & Connect’ webinar series where we annually engage 1,000+ older adults, CBSS staff, clinicians, and researchers in BC. We have received feedback that our audiences would like “more science”. The requested funds will support five to seven science-aligned webinars over a one-year period, targeting a pan-Canadian audience. The webinars will feature some of Canada’s top healthy aging researchers alongside some of the country’s most respected practitioners in the CBSS sector who can reflect on how community programs and services presently operate and align with leading research. We provide a list of webinar topics based on input from the Society’s program partners: 1) Greif & Loss; 2) Motivation & Agency; 3) Coping with Anxiety & Depression; 4) Nutrition & Hydration; 5) Sleep for Brain Health; 6) Caregiving Considerations in Older Age; and 7) Ageism & Health. Upon funding, we will refine the topic list based on the availability of speakers. We welcome suggestions from CIHR-IA. Audience: Older Canadians are the primary audience for the webinars with Canadian CBSS staff, clinicians, healthy aging researchers, and knowledge translation & exchange (KTE) researchers and practitioners as a secondary audience. The Society will promote the webinars to our existing networks and channels (e.g. 5,000+ social media and newsletter subscribers; 15,000+ website visitors; 95+ program partners). CBSS organizations outside BC will be strategically engaged with the aim of gaining their participation in the webinars and other initiatives. Building from our existing academic relationships, we will reach out to Canadian researchers with a compelling invitation to contribute to the webinars as part of their KTE plans.