IN-PERSON London. Section A

Abstract

Municipal dementia-friendly community (DFC) action plans in British Columbia (BC), Canada acknowledge the importance of the physical environment and identify corresponding strategies and actions under the purview of City departments, such as planning, design, engineering, transportation, parks, and community services. Given the time elapsed since the launch of these action plans, it is important to know how municipal professionals have responded to the mandate for a dementia-friendly physical environment. The aim of this study is to understand municipal professionals’ needs, challenges, and solutions to achieve a dementia-friendly physical environment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 municipal professionals from different departments in four municipal regions in BC that have launched DFC action plans in the last five years. Participants reported a range of systemic challenges to adopting the DFC lens in city planning related to inadequacies in 1) awareness about dementia and training of municipal professionals, 2) implementation and follow-up strategy, and 3) regional standards and guidelines. Participants highlighted the value of knowledge sharing between municipalities and learning through best practices and exemplars to facilitate the adoption of the dementia-friendly lens in planning and design. Innovative methods of consultation and engagement, such as community walkabouts were found useful to enable municipal professionals to learn from people with lived experience while surveying spaces. Participants indicated that with the appropriate resources, advocacy, and buy-in to address DFC priorities in planning and design, a collaborative and user-engaged approach could be adopted to meaningfully involve people with dementia and care partners in planning dementia-friendly environments.