Partnerships in Action: Collaborative Seniors’ Portal

1. Partnerships in Action:Collaborative Seniors’ Portal How Three Levels of Government Are Overcoming Borders and Boundaries To Serve Seniors Better Geoff Quirt Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat Walter Bilyk Community Services I&IT Cluster

2. Why Seniors? The Seniors’ Experience Canadian Seniors Partnership CSP Project Vision Governance Supporting the “No Wrong Door” Strategy Accomplishments Lessons Learned Strategic Issues Go Forward Strategy Qs and As Today’s Presentation

3. Why Seniors? • Seniors: • 27.5 % (9.2M) of Canada’s population by 2011 • 30.6% (10.5M) by 2016 (Health Canada) • Internet Usage in Canada (Statistics Canada): • In 1997, 29% of households - 5.3% were citizens +65 • In 2001, 60.2% of households - 19.3% were seniors • Seniors Canada On-line audience includes 35-54 age group family members • 74.1% of households used the Internet • 52.5% of 55-64 age group used the Internet (Statistics Canada)

4. Why Seniors? Isolation Health Culture Multiple, Major Seniors’ Issues Housing Ageism Poverty

5. Provincial/ Territorial A Canadian Family Municipal Legal Services Federal (e.g. Seniors Canada On-line) Unconsolidated information – contact by multiple case workers Service Providers Non-Governmental Organizations (e.g. United Way) Housing Services The senior’s experience CURRENT STATE Comprehensive Housing Information, Program and Services

6. Overwhelming Straightforward Frustrating Satisfying Inconsistent Consistent Duplication Streamlined Improving Access to Seniors’ Services

7. Canadian Seniors Partnership • Vision • Provide Seniors, their families and service providers with easy access to “citizen-centred” government service • Multi-jurisdictional co-operative focus for Seniors’ services and programs • maximize scarce resources to transform service delivery • straightforward telephone, in-person, mail, Internet routes to answers, programs and services

8. Partnership Objectives • Create collaborative service transformation projects to improve service delivery to seniors • Connect all Seniors Portals across Canada. Truly "no wrong door" • Enlarge participating membership. • Enhance partnership impact • Provide forum for greater understanding of existing initiatives/foster interest • Create network of service providers dedicated to meaningful change • Pursue common approach to achieve integrated multi-channel service delivery

9. An Example: Housing All three levels of government are involved in meeting this need: • Home adaptations for Seniors Independence: Grant for Ramp - Federal • Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal: Tenant application for Rent Reduction - Provincial • Leeds and Grenville Housing Authority: Apartment application - Municipal

10. Provincial/ Territorial Municipal A Canadian Family Federal (e.g. Seniors Canada On-line) Legal Services Multi- Access Portal for Seniors Service Providers Consolidated information – contact by single case worker Non-Governmental Organizations (e.g., United Way) Housing Service Professionals The senior’s experience FUTURE STATE Comprehensive Housing Information, Program and Services

11. Jointly developed Portal – Citizen Centered Supports principle of “no wrong door” Provides seniors with improved access to information/services from: 3 levels of government Service providers Simple, logical Cross-silo, Cross-jurisdictional Supports Service Transformation & Multi-Channel strategy Collaborative Seniors’ Portal

12. Collaborative Seniors’ Portal - Vision

13. Initial Pilot - City of Brockville • Why Brockville? • Municipality as Full Partner • Involving the Community and Seniors Organizations • Value of Citizen Input

14. Governance

15. Collaborative Seniors’ Portal Prototype

16. Supporting the “No Wrong Door” Strategy Multi-Channel Seniorsinfo.ca (Seniors Portal) • Multi-Channel: • Interoperable Web, OTC Phone, kiosk • Federation of Partner Portals: • Portals to meet minimum federation requirements • Navigation: • Simple navigation & links • Clients receive consistent info/service through any portal (no wrong door) • Aligned Metadata/Shared Index: • Aligned metadata to guide search rankings of partner search engines • Same list of indexed content to be used Provincial and Municipal Views Common Content Management Strategy Federated Portals Navigation Shared Index Metadata HRDC CCRA COB OSS SCOL Future CSP Strategies

17. Strong political and senior management commitment from all partners Stakeholders and citizens share vision & concept Comprehensive Project Charter Leadership through Project Steering Committee, Project Team, and Project Manager Inter-jurisdictional partnerships/work teams in place/very active/productive Prototype for consumer testing Accomplishments To Date

18. Accomplishments To Date • Focus Group and Portal Usability testing with Brockville Seniors • Content aggregation strategy defined and Action Plan in process • Development of optimized client focused cross-jurisdictional taxonomy for improved search • Successful alignment with partner e-gov’t strategies • Significant progress with portal architecture/design • CSP – service transformation project candidate • Plan for Starter Kit for future rollouts

19. Relationships, relationships, relationships Get corporate and political support/commitment Have a citizen-centred Vision Focus on broad Service Integration Realizing a concept takes time Immediately engage citizens and stakeholders, and identify their skills and experiences Develop strong partnerships, alliances Have champions in each partner organization Lessons Learned

20. Create governance and funding models to define roles and responsibilities, contributions, expectations Align with existing partner initiatives Aim for realistic deliverables/short term iterations Get work teams together quickly Leverage what you have built and learned Nurture success and value for everyone Communicate, communicate, communicate Lessons Learned

21. Sustainable Governance and Funding Models Agreements on breadth, scope, approach, and partner roles/commitments Technology investment and framework for inter-jurisdictional initiatives Capacity of Partners to participate, maintain pace, and keep focused on project vision/objectives Scale strategy for expansion Evolution to greater value for citizens: Service integration Seamless transactions E-democracy Strategic Issues

22. Go Forward Strategy • Initial Pilot – City of Brockville (October 2003) • Full post-pilot review and update of model • Align with and participate in inter-jurisdictional Service Integration initiatives (eg. Catalytic project strategy) • Scale and refine the strategy/model for rollout to other Ontario municipalities and provinces • Confirm sustainable funding • Document and publish results to support framework for inter-jurisdictional SI projects • Updates at PSSDC and Lac Carling 2004

23. Thank You! Geoff Quirt Assistant Deputy Minister Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat Province of Ontario geoff.quirt@mczcr.gov.on.ca Walter Bilyk Director, Technology & Business Solutions Community Services I&IT Cluster Province of Ontario walter.bilyk@mczcr.gov.on.ca