History

At the end of 2015, a group of CEO’s from four organizations in the county, BB&T, Hanesbrands, Reynolds American, and Wake Forest Baptist Health, met and determined that aging needed to be a priority in our community. This group looked to Senior Services to develop a way to elevate the topic of aging. Beginning in 2016, Senior Services began convening a wide variety of stakeholders to form the research collaborative, a group of over 100 organizational and community members that led county-wide research activities. Forsyth Futures was contracted to facilitate all data and research related activities associated with this process, and still remains a contracted partner that handles the project management activities of the initiative to date.

Organizational partners including Novant Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health, and several other nonprofit, corporate, educational, and philanthropic organizations, as well as community members, have been involved in the research and planning processes. A community survey of more than 1,000 residents was conducted December 2016-January 2017. In March of 2017, Age-Friendly Forsyth hosted three World Café-style Community Conversation events involving more than 120 people. These research activities led to a “state of aging” report, which was released in May, 2017.

In June, 2017, key findings from the report were presented to the community at a Planning Symposium, where more than 100 community members gathered to provide direction on priority focus areas for the initiative moving forward. For the past year organizational and community members have been developing the process, structure, and resident engagement components of this collaborative initiative. As we move into action and developing the community plan, our focus is on community engagement.