Programs Bring Generations Together
Both young people and older adults benefit when they share skills and wisdom. Several schools, universities, cities and individuals have set goals to bridge the generational divide through classes, discussions and other programs. Click here to view article.
In today’s society, the paths of older and younger people seldom cross. Many feel this is a loss to both age groups as well as to the community in general. To counteract this trend, several organizations and individuals are offering workshops, classes and other methods to bring together the generations.
“In these tough economic times, we need new strategies for meeting the challenges facing individuals of all ages and the communities in which they live. Now more than ever we need to strengthen the interdependence across generations,” is how the Intergenerational Center at Temple University explains it.
Two schools in Cleveland are in the forefront of this movement. At the Intergenerational School and the Near West Intergenerational School, both public charter schools, seniors from the community serve as mentors to students, as do college students from a nearby university. The benefit works both ways: not only do older adults help the schoolchildren, but the seniors themselves learn things they may have forgotten or perhaps never knew.
Helen Hui, a Certified Senior Advisor®, realized the need for a place where older adults can share their skills and wisdom after seeing her once-active mother lose her drive after she stopped working.
Her mother had once been a tennis player, and Hui recalls going with her to a tennis tournament where women in their 70s and 80s were playing. “This is the way to go,” Hui thought and told her students at Cairn University, where she taught health and physical fitness, “When I’m 80, you’re going to find me on the tennis court.”
Until she was 87, Hui’s mother ran her own restaurant, working 10 to 12 hours a day, a true example of someone staying vigorous and healthy by staying active. But within three years of her retirement, with her activity level decreased, she watched tennis on TV rather than play it. Now 94, her health is still fairly good, but her drive and passion for life is almost gone.
“It made me start to think: what happened to my mother?” Hui said. “If she kept active, would that have made the difference? If she kept playing tennis? Some of her friends were playing in their 90s.”
What makes a person thrive, she wondered. Hui could see that once people left their familiar routines and connections, their health declined. Even when staying close to friends, older adults tended to talk mainly about their health concerns. New energy was needed, she thought, especially from younger people.
Hui resigned from teaching and started doing research and volunteering, including work with Project Shine at the Intergenerational Center at Temple University, which recruits college-level volunteers to work with immigrant elders. The connection worked both ways: The elders taught tai chi to college students, and the students, who were learning Chinese in school, were able to practice their language skills with the elders. The elders enjoyed the energy of the young people, and the college recruits learned about the elders’ life experiences and shared their own.
Since 1979, the center has created and implemented intergenerational program models, both national and local in scope, that get people of all ages to support one another and address social issues in their communities. In Philadelphia, 550 volunteers—300 older adults and 250 students—annually help more than 4,000 people with caregiving, immigrant integration and other programs.
The center’s programs include older adults supporting children with special needs through in-home support, respite trips and social work services, in addition to helping low-income middle school students prepare to enter and succeed in college. Other programs include:
- Grandma’s Kids—serving children living with caregivers other than their biological parents
- Time Out Respite Program—providing low-cost services to families caring for the frail elderly
- English as a Second Language (ESL) and Citizenship—mobilizing college students from diverse disciplines and cultures to tutor older immigrants and refugees in basic English language skills, U.S. history and civics needed to pass the naturalization exam
- Workforce Development—building teams of younger tutors and older volunteers to provide immigrants and refugees with ESL classes that focus on workplace and employment skills
After volunteering at the Intergenerational Center at Temple University, Hui decided to develop an intergenerational center in Philadelphia, where she lives. Hui wants her center, called Heritage Builders, to be “a facility or place where crucial exchanges can take place, where young and old can interact and learn from each other. Senior adults need a place to socialize or share their experiences, expertise and hobbies with the younger generation.” She envisions an older person with carpentry skills mentoring a younger person, and older adults teaching a new generation about the lost art of cooking.
To start, she will use churches, where facilities and differing populations are already in place. Rather than getting grants for funding, Hui wants to create a more sustainable model by establishing small businesses using the skills taught in the classes at the center. Perhaps she can open a snack shop with culturally appropriate food.
“The bottom line,” she says, “is that by mixing the generations, older adults feel needed and get energy just being around younger people, and with their life experience, they can relate to younger people, who need someone to talk to.”
Another university program that works on intergenerational issues is the Penn State Intergenerational Program, which provides “leadership and resource support for organizations interested in developing and studying intergenerational programs and activities that enrich people’s lives and help address vital social and community issues.”
Last March it held a discussion among 24 10th grade students and 18 older adult volunteers at a local high school in central Pennsylvania. Using the book, Hitler’s Daughter, the group discussed World War II, the Holocaust, moral and ethical issues related to war and peace, and family relationship issues, particularly in times of turmoil.
Making the discussion more real, several of the adults had lived through World War II and were able to talk about their own experiences. One student later commented, “The class gave me an experience that no account of history can give. I was given a human connection to WWII and a sense of the real emotions for the events that took place. . . . I learned that war really should not be glorified in any way, as some of the seniors explained how they realized this after WWII.”
Every year, MetLife Foundation and Generations United honor four communities in the United States with the 2013 Best Intergenerational Communities Awards (“Communities Awards. America’s Best Intergenerational Communities”). One winner, Dunedin, Florida, sponsors 29 events each year that bring together multiple generations. In addition, the community has ongoing programs, ranging from teenagers visiting nursing homes, the Rotary Club assisting children in grades K through 2 to improve their reading skills and third grade students and older adults stitching together a quilt that represents the younger and older generations.
Another winner, Itta Bena, Mississippi, has no grocery store, but a community garden engages people of all ages in the planning, harvesting and distribution of the garden’s produce. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the public schools work with several nonprofit organizations to bring in older adults to tutor and mentor students. In turn, the schools offer students service-learning opportunities where they can help older residents. Westchester County, New York, the fourth winner, boasts more than 40 intergenerational programs.
As anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Somehow we have to get older people back close to growing children if we are to restore a sense of community, a knowledge of the past and a sense of the future.”
Benefits of Intergenerational Programs
The positive effects work on all levels: community, youth and older adults.
For the Community
- Strengthens community by dispelling stereotypes held by young and older people, creating a unified group identity and decreasing alienation felt by children, youth and older adults.
- Maximizes human resources by using older adults and youth to benefit the community.
- Encourages cultural exchange by promoting the transmission of cultural traditions and values from older to younger generations, helping to build a sense of personal and societal identity while encouraging tolerance.
For Youth and Children
- Enhances social skills through interaction with older adults, as well as promoting self-esteem and developing problem-solving abilities.
- Improves academic performance through tutoring by older adults, which boosts school attendance and performance.
- Increases stability by providing positive role models with whom children can interact on a regular basis.
For Older Adults
- Enhances socialization so older adults remain productive, useful and contributing members of society.
- Stimulates learning, with youth passing on new innovations and technologies.
- Increases emotional support by giving seniors an opportunity to participate in a meaningful activity, which decreases loneliness, boredom and depression while increasing self-esteem.
Source: EPA
http://www.optimumseniorcare.com/services/alzheimerscare.php