It’s Time to Unleash the Power of Canada’s Community-Based Seniors Services Sector to Better Enable Healthy Ageing and Ageing in the Right Place

Most older Canadians want to remain in their own homes and communities as they age. However, a new report from the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) warns that the community support services needed to make that possible remain fragmented, underfunded and difficult to navigate across much of Canada.

It’s Time to Unleash the Power of Canada’s Community-Based Seniors Services Sector to Better Enable Healthy Ageing and Ageing in the Right Place examines the thousands of organizations providing non-clinical services that help older adults remain healthy, independent and connected in their communities.

The NIA is calling on federal, provincial and territorial governments, together with the CBSS sector, to build a more coordinated and sustainable system of community supports.

Among the report’s recommendations are:

• Make services easier to find and access, including clearer single-entry pathways, stronger integration with 211 and more community-based navigators
• Formally recognize CBSS as a core part of Canada’s ageing infrastructure, rather than discretionary or supplemental programming
• Define a core basket of community-based services that older adults across Canada should reasonably expect to be able to access
• Move toward stable, predictable, multi-year funding that keeps pace with inflation and demographic pressures
• Strengthen national and provincial/territorial coordination and capacity-building across the sector
• Improve equity and culturally safe services, including greater support for Indigenous-led, culturally and linguistically appropriate and community-led approaches 
• Develop common definitions, indicators and data systems to measure access, quality, outcomes and the sector’s impact on health and social systems.