Vital Aging Network

Building strong leadership teams in the Wellness 50+ pilots. Our self-directed teams of older adults are committed to the work and to each other, hold themselves accountable and work hard to achieve their shared vision.Tools such as StrengthsFinders 2.0, team norms, rotating roles and shared ownership have helped to create a culture of trust and to make the teams resilient. Each team has a high level of pride in the work they are doing. The program’s design ensures that the teams have strategies for continually adding new members. Working through that process from year 1 to year 2, helped us understand that it is essential to integrate new members into the team from the start and not to separate them for training purposes. We have also learned that as community-based groups, having fun and engaging at a social level is essential, both to build team cohesion and to model the social capital that they hope to engender in the broader community. While the teams have formed and made substantial progress, it is also clear that developing relationships and a committed team that can successfully advance the wellness goals requires a substantial time, mutual understanding and commitment.

Frequently revisiting goals and being sure everyone—team members and program participants—is in alignment. At the outset of the program, Wellness 50+ carefully selected its goals to reach a broad cross-section of the community, to make measurable behavior change, to strengthen leadership for wellness and to make the work sustainable. We believe that all four goals are essential for long-term success. It is easy for team dynamics to pull the focus into one or more of the goals at the expense of the others. For example, several teams started by planning and implementing events and put little emphasis on creating methods to achieve measurable behavior change. Without measureable change, their efforts will soon feel futile—both to team members and the community. By keeping the importance of all four goals in front of the teams and providing additional resources for how they can achieve the goals, we have been able to make significant progress. The Oakdale team’s walking challenge is an example of how one team is approaching measuring change. They have partnered with the Oakdale Discovery Center staff, which will register participants, log miles and provide a gift card after walks.

Regularly examining what’s working and what’s not working to make improvement in the next iteration of the work. Community members drive the Wellness 50+ pilots and, as a result, there is no overall blueprint for teams to follow. Freedom to take their initiative in the direction that fits their community has lead to wonderful creativity but also at times angst as they find their original approach ineffective. To ensure that they are achieving their goals, teams have incorporated processes for reflection and modifying their direction based on what they are learning. The teams do so by evaluating their progress each step of the way. For example, after the Alexandria team completed a twelve-week physical activity project their evaluation, including feedback from participants, pointed to several changes that they will implement in the next round of the project. Changes include pairing people as buddies, partnering with Alexandria Technical & Community College to offer a physical activity class during the 12-week project, and providing activities at various times of the day and week.