Senior Spotlight
Grandmother Inspired Nursing Home Program
After seeing the poor condition of her grandmother’s nursing home, Linda Holloway wanted to bring more joy to nursing home residents, as well as more understanding to young people. Click here to view article.
When Linda Holloway, 67, saw the poor conditions at the nursing home where her grandmother lived, she knew she had to do something for older people. When she sat down to think about it, she kept hearing a God-like command: “Bring together the young and old.”
That was the start of Bessie’s Hope, a nonprofit program that trains young people, particularly at-risk youth, to interact with nursing home and assisted living “elders,” as she calls them. This year, Bessie’s Hope, named for Holloway’s grandmother, celebrates 20 years of “transforming the lives of the too-often forgotten elders, the misdirected “at-risk” youth and all who participate in the volunteer programs.” Last year the group worked with 2,815 youth and 3,015 elders in the Denver area.
A certified music therapist, Holloway remembers the joy she saw when she and her friend Sharron Brandrup played music for the residents in her grandmother’s nursing home. That inspiration, combined with Brandrup’s experience working with youth, and a third friend, Marge Utne’s practical knowledge of grants, board structure and attorneys, led to the start of the program. It enlists students from preschool to high school in the Denver public schools, which incorporates Bessie’s Hope into its curriculum, as well as from youth residence programs.
What separates Bessie’s Hope from other group efforts, such as the Girl Scouts, that visit nursing homes is that Bessie’s Hope has built an ongoing relationship with schools and designed programs specifically for inter-generation participation. The staff trains teachers and students, even providing an orchestrated dialogue when the young people first approach their elders, whom Holloway refers to as their “grandpartners.”
Students are told to take their “grandpartner’s” hand and look in their eyes, introduce themselves and find out the elder’s name. Young people learn what to do if their grandpartner is unable to speak (due to Alzheimer’s, for example) and how to compliment the elder (anything from pretty eyes to nice shoes). The curriculum teaches young people to appropriately react to different situations. For instance, students are trained to respond calmly if the elder starts yelling or is confused and thinks the young person is someone else.
Every visit is organized with a planned activity, such as music, dancing or reading. Nothing is required except a living history project in which the young people interview the grandpartners, write an autobiographical sketch and then present it to the entire group. “Kids are so changed by the activity that they look forward to continuation,” Holloway says. At the same time, the elders are encouraged to interact with the students, sharing stories about a different era.
One of the emphases of Bessie’s Hope is working with at-risk teens from residential treatment centers. Holloway has found that the teens who are the most in need get the most out of working with older people. “It has become evident through the years that this work does for at-risk youth what nothing else can. They feel valued and needed and finally validated as human beings with purpose in this world,” states the website. Holloway cited one boy who grew up with violence and drugs. After spending time with nursing home residents, he became passionate about being with the elders. “It showed a new me,” he said, “someone kinder and more energetic.”
At the same time, the elders feel valued and needed, especially those who are lonely or feel hopeless. One nursing home resident, a former professional ballet dancer, had become reclusive, embarrassed because her lifestyle was so drastically altered from her glory days. Yet once the young people started interacting with her, she started talking, Holloway observed. They valued her for who she is now, rather than what she had been.
It is Holloway’s wish that places like Bessie’s Hope spread across the country. Yet the most interest she has in the intergenerational bridging of young and old is from Germany. When a German nursing home administrator did a comparative analysis of nursing homes in the United States and Germany, he was so impressed by Bessie’s Hope that he put together a book based on what he learned. The book caught the attention of German Chancellor Angela Merkl, and he received funding to set up intergenerational nursing home projects across his country.
“[Germans] respect their elders and consider them something that will strengthen the whole culture,” Holloway says. “At same time, people here [in the U.S.] don’t want to hear about elders. . . . Most [U.S.] kids see elders as something worn out, but elders have so much to offer.” She quotes one teenager who participated in Bessie’s Hope: “It’s so wonderful to talk to someone who has been there and done that.”
http://www.optimumseniorcare.com/services/alzheimerscare.php