Programs and Projects
The Silver Century Foundation (SCF) undertakes programs and projects designed to increase public awareness that negative images of older people are endemic in our culture, especially in the media, and that they can lodge destructively in our minds. The Foundation's programs seek to create public dialogues regarding common, erroneous assumptions about later life, and to empower those who experience ageism so that they can recognize and respond to it.
Discussions
Begun in 2002, The Silver Century Foundation's Film and Discussion Program, Silver Cinema, challenges assumptions about older people and what we can expect of our own later years. The program operates in several different venues in Central New Jersey.
Forums
From 2003-2005, The Foundation co-sponsored a series of six policy forums entitled Safe Mobility at Any Age, which examined safe driving and its policy implications, focusing on the state of New Jersey. The forums addressed the following specific topics:
- Safe Mobility Issues in New Jersey: The Mature Driver in New Jersey and The Maryland Safe Mobility Research Consortium
- Functional Assessment and Health Screening
- The Future of Vehicle and Roadway Safety and Design
- Community Transportation Alternatives
- Volunteers: We Couldn’t Do It Without Them
- Synthesis Workshop
The purpose of these well-attended forums was to consider best practices and model programs related to safe mobility for older drivers. The forums attracted an audience that included state policy makers, and brought together practitioners from the fields of transportation, law enforcement, and health and senior services. After each presentation, panelists and audience participated in a dialogue regarding policies and initiatives that should be undertaken in New Jersey to address critical mobility issues. The Foundation co-sponsored Safe Mobility at Any Age with the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center and the New Jersey Foundation for Aging. A copy of the Safe Mobility at Any Age Policy Forum Series Final Report can be found here.
Conversations
May 2008. The Foundation sponsored its first facilitated Conversation Event on age and aging. Conversations bring together people from various walks of life to share their experiences of aging. Participants in this initial conversation were the SCF board, advisory committee, staff and consultants, and interested friends.
Conferences
September, 2003. Designing Customized Services to Serve Diverse Needs: Best Practice Models in Transportation, Housing and Care Management. Co-sponsored with the New Jersey Foundation for Aging.
September 2004. Nuts and Bolts Seminar on Implementing Two Transportation Models: PASRide and Independent Transportation Network (ITN). Co-sponsored with the New Jersey Foundation for Aging.
October 2005. The first ITNAmerica National Summit, in Freeport, Maine. Two years earlier, ITN, the Independent Transportation Network, received a grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to plan a rollout of its model program, a sustainable, national, non-profit transportation service for seniors. At the Summit, transportation experts -- together with representatives from communities and philanthropies that care about older citizens -- gathered to discuss the plan for the ITNAmerica rollout across the country. The meeting was co-sponsored by the SCF, along with AARP, the Winter Park Health Foundation, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, and others.
June 12, 2008. Promoting Successful Aging, a day-long New Jersey Foundation on Aging conference co-sponsored by the SCF, together with the New Jersey Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Friends Foundation for Aging, the Theresa and Thomas Berry Foundation, and the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.
Partnerships
From time to time, SCF partners with the Princeton LifeExtension Institute to bring programs to the community on how people age, and how we may be able to intervene to slow the aging process.