In response to a recent request I made to the office of the Seniors’ Advocate BC, I am now signed up to regularly receive a copy of various reports reflecting interests of seniors and all others who are concerned with associated issues. I intend to seek clarification of the role of both the appointed advocate herself, and also the overall function of the official office, which I will be pleased to include in future copies of our own local seniors’ column, which as you are already aware, is published each week in the Arrow Lakes News.
Isobel Mackenzie, appointed as the first seniors’ advocate for the Province of B.C. has over 20 years’ experience working with seniors in the areas of home care, licensed care, volunteer and community services. During her experiences she led BC’s largest not-for — profit agency, serving over 6,000 seniors throughout the province each year. In this work, she has led the implementation of a new model of dementia care, which is noted to be a national best practice. She has led the first safety accreditation for homecare workers amongst many other accomplishments, which include being widely recognized as the provincial CEO of the Year for the not-for-profit sector and was nominated as a Provincial Health Care Hero.
The Office of the Seniors Advocate was established by the provincial government as part of the Seniors’ Action Plan designed as a strategy to address the needs and issues of Nakusp and all other growing parts of our beautiful province.
The Seniors Advocate Act was passed in 2013 and in March of the following year, Isobel took office.
The key functions include monitoring and analyzing of the provision of seniors’ services in the areas of health, personal services, housing, transportation and income supports. The office will monitor through data analysis, surveys, consultation and input stemming from seniors as well as their families. In addition, it will work in the best interests of seniors by identifying, analyzing as well as promoting awareness of systems, challenges with the goal of finding solutions to these challenges.
The office will also provide information and referrals about services which are available, and will also make recommendations through direct advisories to service providers and stakeholders in addition to reports on specific topics, and mandated formal reports to the minister.
Next weeks’ column will focus on the results of the Office of the Seniors Advocate’s first Monitoring Report of Seniors’ Services, which was released in the later part of January.
