Age Friendly Seattle Adapts to the Virtual Environment

Age Friendly Seattle has constantly renewed its events to cater to guests. Before the pandemic, they held monthly Civic Coffee Hours in downtown locations, including the Central Branch of the Seattle Library. The events informed people of all ages about current events and programs for different needs and emphasized inclusivity. At the beginning of 2020, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they had to orientate themselves virtually – which they and many users had never done before.

Lenny Orlov, an Age Friendly Seattle program coordinator and host of Age Friendly Seattle’s live and online events, said the events were drastically different from when they began 15 years ago.

“We often had to provide food – coffee, donuts, or something healthy – in person,” Orlov said. “We devoted half of our time to presentations and the other half to questions, answers, and feedback. In addition, people could arrive earlier and stay later. “

The Coffee Hours began as “both citizen participation and social engagement opportunities,” he continued. “Citizen participation practically continues, but … the social aspect was much stronger than we met personally.”

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped Age Friendly Seattle from holding monthly meetings to provide helpful information to the public. For Nancy Slote, senior adult program manager at the Seattle Public Library and a recurring guest at the events, providing useful information during these unprecedented times is key to reaching the public.

“I think one of the benefits of the partnership is that the library and Age Friendly have a unique reach to the public,” said Slote. “The more information we can pass on to people, the better.”

After observation and adaptation, Age Friendly Seattle hosted a second series of virtual events in April 2021, entitled Close to Home: Stories of Health, Tech & Resilience. Close to Home highlights community information. Orlov said the event was “for a larger audience, where community leaders and their organizations are showcased alongside those in the city – we wanted to encourage people to stay home but keep connected and we wanted to keep the community together” .

Throughout their journey, the Age Friendly Seattle team struggled with accessibility – both audio and voice. With limited resources, they were unable to subtitle face-to-face meetings in any language or translate them from English into viewers’ languages. With the tools available, Microsoft Teams turned out to be an excellent online resource for auto-captioning.

“As we started reaching different communities, the events grew,” Orlov said. Age Friendly Seattle has received helpful feedback. Now, automatic subtitles are offered in six languages ​​spoken by many of their viewers – English, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese – and they hope to add more in the future.

Over the past year, the Age Friendly Seattle team has found its rhythm and is moving forward with determination. One of Orlov’s key skills learned as a result of the process is multitasking.

“Delegating is important because a lot happens at once,” he said. “I used to have to do everything, including our Q&A part.”

Orlov also improved his oral skills. At first it was difficult to speak without reference to notes, he said. It took a lot of practice not to sound like he was reading a script.

Slote elaborated on this, saying a key skill she honed during the presentation was imagination. “Pretending to speak to someone in person helps,” she said. “I try to imagine that someone is standing in front of me. That really helps me to be more relaxed and not too formal. “

The Age Friendly Seattle team overcame technical difficulties along the way but strived to make their events more inclusive and better every time. They plan to move towards a “hybrid state” where participants can attend in person at multiple locations, such as senior living communities or community centers across the city, after the pandemic ends.

The Civic Coffee Hours takes place every third Thursday of the month from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Close-to-home events take place every first Thursday of the month (excluding December) from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time. During the event, visit bit.ly/AgeFriendlyLive and click the blue “Join the event now” button. For information on other ways to connect, including by phone, click the green Get Instructions button.

If you miss the live shows, you can check out Age Friendly Seattle’s YouTube playlists for video recordings of previous events.

* Blog post author, Jody Wong, was an intern with the Seattle Youth Employment Program this summer. She spent six weeks with HSD’s communications team learning about Age Friendly Seattle’s blogging, report editing, and virtual event support. You may have seen her moderate a question!