On Thursday, DHHS officials arrived at the Central Davis Senior Activity Center in Kaysville, where dozens of seniors and other interested parties had a chance to voice their concerns and brainstorm potential solutions. The session was one of eight regional feedback sessions that began in mid-April as part of the state’s Wealth Independence Security Engagement, or WISE, Initiative.

In his opening remarks, DHHS Deputy Director Nate Checketts noted that Utah is the youngest state in the nation as far as the age of its population, but this is rapidly changing.

“Although we are the youngest state in the nation, we also have one of the fastest growing populations of older adults,” he said. “We need, as a state, to be planning and strategizing about the best way to take advantage of the fact that our population is changing. So, what should we be doing now to prepare for those changes in the next five to 10 years?”

He said that feedback sessions like this are part of that strategy.

“The governor has put forward an initiative he put into his budget last year,” Checketts said. “He calls it the WISE Initiative — Wealth Independence Security Engagement — and he has different efforts going on in each of those areas. We have some thoughts about where things might be able to go, but we are going around the state to events like this … to hear from you about where you think the state should go to best address these issues.”

Several dozen people took part in the discussions. People were divided into groups and encouraged to discuss what issues seniors were facing in the state as well as potential solutions. The highlights of these discussions would be relayed by representatives from each group to DHHS staff who were taking notes.

Issues raised included cuts to at-home care, fall prevention, transportation access, communication on available programs, mental health access and program eligibility requirements.

Checketts told the Standard-Examiner that there’s been positive reception for the sessions and that the state is learning a lot from them.

“We’ve had some really good participation,” he said. ” Some of the issues that have been coming up: Individuals are concerned about financial risk for older adults — risk of fraud occurring — so how do we educate adults about that so they can be able to navigate that successfully? We’ve been talking about how to use our resources better. We have senior centers and there’s been great discussions about possibly rebranding those as community centers as being a better way to bring people into them.”

Four sessions remain and will be carried out through the remainder of May.

Once concluded, Checketts said the information will be compiled for the public to review.

“We’re taking the individual feedback from all of these different meetings — we have eight different listening sessions around the state — and we’re going to create a draft plan about where we think Utah should go in the next five to 10 years,” he said. “We’ll release that out to the public and get public feedback on that draft plan and use that to finalize a plan about things that Utah can prioritize over the next five to 10 years to make this a great place for older adults to live.”

The next discussion session — which is intended to cover Utah, Summit and Wasatch counties — is set for May 13 from 2-4 p.m. at the American Fork Senior Center in American Fork.

For more on the WISE Initiative, visit https://daas.utah.gov/utah-wise-initiative/.