<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:28923.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-560
INNOVATION IN THE AGING NETWORK:
THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL SERVICES FOR OLDER AMERICANS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WASHINGTON, DC
__________
MAY 3, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-22
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
_____
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
28-923 PDF WASHINGTON : 2006
_________________________________________________________________
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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
GORDON SMITH, Oregon, Chairman
RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
SUSAN COLLINS, Maine JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri RON WYDEN, Oregon
ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida EVAN BAYH, Indiana
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania BILL NELSON, Florida
CONRAD BURNS, Montana HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee KEN SALAZAR, Colorado
JIM DEMINT, South Carolina
Catherine Finley, Staff Director
Julie Cohen, Ranking Member Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Opening Statement of Senator Gordon Smith........................ 1
Prepared Statement of Senator Herb Kohl.......................... 403
Prepared Statement of Senator Ken Salazar........................ 403
Panel I
Neal E. Lane, director, New York State Office for the Aging,
Albany, NY..................................................... 4
Gayla S. Woody, director, Aging Program Administrator, Centralina
Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging, Charlotte, NC..... 376
Pamela B. Smith, director, Aging and Independence Services, San
Diego County, San Diego, CA.................................... 389
APPENDIX
Questions from Senator Kohl for Gayla S. Woody................... 405
Questions from Senator Kohl for Pamela B. Smith.................. 406
(iii)
INNOVATION IN THE AGING NETWORK: THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL SERVICES FOR
OLDER AMERICANS
------------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Special Committee on Aging,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gordon Smith
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Smith, Carper, and Salazar.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GORDON SMITH, CHAIRMAN
The Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We
welcome you all to this hearing of the Senate Special Committee
on Aging and we appreciate all of your attendance, especially
our witnesses.
Senator Kohl, the ranking member, is detained in an
Appropriations meeting that he cannot miss and will be joining
us, we hope, before too long and when he does, we will turn to
him for his statement and questions. But I propose, in the
interest of time and out of respect for your schedules, that we
will proceed. So I will begin with my statement and then we
will go to our witnesses.
Today's hearing will focus on the need for the Aging
Network to prepare and evolve for the coming retirement of the
baby boom generation. We will also explore the upcoming
reauthorization of the Older Americans Act and the need to
support efforts within the act that prepare social services for
future older Americans.
To meet the diverse needs of the growing numbers of older
persons in the United States, the Older Americans Act of 1965
created the primary vehicle for organizing, coordinating and
providing services to older Americans and their families. This
system, now known as the National Aging Network, is a national
network of Federal, state and local agencies created to plan
and provide services that enable older adults to live
independently in their homes and in their communities. Today
this network includes 56 state units, 655 area agencies known
as AAAs, and 243 Native American aging programs, over 29,000
service providers and thousands, truly thousands of volunteers.
As we have discussed many times in this committee, the
share of the population that is over the age of 65 is projected
and it is an inescapable fact that it will increase
significantly in the coming years. Due to the dramatic
increases in life expectancy, the 77 million Americans born in
the United States during the boom years of 1946 to 1964 can
expect, on average, to live to the age of 83. However, many
will live well into their 90's.
Baby boomers represent the largest single sustained growth
of the population in the history of the United States. Their
mass alone has had an enormous impact on the national psyche,
the political arena, and in our social fabric. From the youth
culture, they created in the 1960's and 1970's to the dual-
income households of the 1980's and the 1990's, this generation
has reinterpreted each successive stage of life.
As the oldest of the baby boomers approach later adulthood,
they again are poised to redefine the next stage of life, which
is retirement. This redefinition will pressure social services
and the Aging Network into needed change. To prepare, many
aging organizations are currently attempting to become more
mobile, technologically advanced, and individualized. Other
organizations are considering uprooting their centers for
services strategy and creating livable communities for aging.
This model hinges on engaging seniors on the community level
and inspiring collaboratives to enhance civic engagement and
create communities that help seniors stay independent,
involved, and healthy.
We must work to strengthen the Aging Network to maximize
effectiveness through coordination. To do this, Federal, state
and most importantly, local level aging service providers will
need to begin to view themselves not as separate sectors that
occasionally overlap but as integral parts of a unified
approach to senior services. We also need to support efforts to
enhance healthy aging with fewer health dollars.
I applaud the Administration on Aging for initiating
conversations about how this can be done. While funding
concerns have been raised regarding the Choices for
Independence proposal, I believe the Administration on Aging
should be applauded for bringing this issue to the table.
Baby boomers are more knowledgeable about health and health
resources than prior generations. Baby boomers also have high
expectations that they will remain healthy and have invested in
nutritional plans and exercise programs. They also use the
Internet to find information, to ensure they are up to date on
the most recent health discoveries. To respond to these
behaviors, the Aging Network may need to adjust, to provide
services that are less focused on acute problems and more
focussed on healthy aging and preventative services.
Finally, we must promote civic engagement to benefit baby
boomers, as well as their communities. Studies show that older
volunteers live longer and healthier than those who are not so
engaged with their communities. A Business Week report of June
27, 2005 found that with increased baby boomer interest in
working longer, ``The financing problems of Social Security and
Medicare will be easier to resolve. Increased productivity of
older Americans and higher labor force participation could add
9 percent to the gross domestic product by 2045.''
Today we will hear from a director of a very large AAA
whose has maximized the impact of her funds by providing
opportunities for healthy older adults to contribute to their
communities. It is important to note that seniors who are
involved in civic engagement and activities often volunteer in
Older Americans Act programs and also serve vulnerable
populations in innovative ways. The reauthorization of the
Older Americans Act represents an exciting opportunity to
modernize the Aging Network for the baby boomer population and
to create opportunities to integrate newer aging concepts, like
civic engagement, into the Aging Network. I urge Congress to
move forward in a timely fashion with the reauthorization of
the Older Americans Act.
Again I thank all of our witnesses who are here. They are
going to share with us some tremendous ideas and hopefully help
Congress have a sufficient light to do right by the
reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.
Our first witness is Mr. Neal Lane. He is the director of
the New York State Office for the Aging. Neal joined the New
York State Office for the Aging as executive deputy director in
May of 2001 and was appointed director in May of 2005. Mr. Lane
has been working for the past several years on an initiative in
New York called Project 2015. This project is New York's
primary planning tool used to prepare New York's aging services
for the baby boomer generation.
Next, after him, we will hear from Miss Gayla Woody, who is
the aging program administrator for the Centralina Council of
Governments Area Agency on Aging in North Carolina. Miss
Woody's testimony will focus on the projects she oversees that
are preparing nine counties in North Carolina for retirement of
the baby boomers and her work with a small county to adapt
services to reflect boomer preferences.
Finally, we will hear from Miss Pam Smith. She is the
director of the Aging and Independence Services in San Diego
County, CA. Miss Smith is not my sister, I do not think, but we
are all related somehow. She is going to discuss civic
engagement opportunities for seniors. She has created
approximately 20 civic engagement programs, which complement
many Older Americans Act programs and involve other government
and private entities.
I also understand, Pam, that you are the mother of Alex
Smith. Alex Smith was an All-American quarterback at the
University of Utah, who is now the quarterback of the San
Francisco Forty-Niners. I was glad to see Alex go to the pro
level because he beat my alma mater, BYU, pretty much every
time he played them. But he is a terrific young man and it is
exciting to be able to root for him more enthusiastically.
So Mr. Lane, we will start with you. Tell us about New
York.
STATEMENT OF NEAL E. LANE, DIRECTOR, NEW YORK STATE OFFICE FOR
THE AGING, ALBANY, NY
Mr. Lane. Thank you, Chairman Smith. I do want to begin by
saying that the Special Committee has had a phenomenal impact
on the quality of life for older Americans throughout its life
and I must say that you continue in that honorable tradition
and I thank you for that.
My name is Neal Lane. I am director of the New York State
Office for the Aging and I have spent some nearly 40 years in
various capacities in the field of aging and I must say, saying
that out loud is a bit startling to me.
I am particularly pleased to be here to talk about the
aging of the baby boomers. There are, as you noted, 78 million
baby boomers in the United States. Twenty-one million of them
have now reached early retirement age. This year the oldest
boomer turns 60 and that would be me. In 18 years, by the year
2024, the entire boomer cohort will reach the age of 60 or
over. I was recently on Long Island, where I was reminded that
several of our communities in New York State, a number of them,
in fact, already have populations that exceed 40 percent aged
60 or over cohorts.
The boomers will change the face of old age. We need to
take a close look at who this population is because of their
characteristics and their numbers. We need to look at this
population differently. We have to take a look at our
communities differently.
This is our bonus generation. This group should be taking a
leadership role in our community and I am here to tell you
today about the innovative and successful approach led by
Governor Pataki that we took in New York State to begin to set
this in motion.
This approach is called Project 2015. It is a future-based
strategic planning process to prepare for the impact of dynamic
population change. I found this approach a transforming
experience for me personally and for the Aging Network. It is
changing the way we look at aging issues and how we consider
the place of our older people within our communities.
Think about who we traditionally invite to tackling issues
of aging. Do we regularly invite the business community, the
transportation community, the homeland security network, the
arts community, and many other nonaging disciplines that have a
stake, whether they know it or not, in the challenges and the
opportunities presented by the upcoming group of older people?
Or do we typically turn only to the experts in the aging world,
both to identify and define the problems and the issues and
then how to address those issues? We then ask the other
disciplines to adapt and accept our view of the world. We
typically think about the older population as they exist
separately and apart from the rest of the community.
In Project 2015 we made a paradigm shift and we did this in
two ways. First, we expanded what we looked at. We did this by
saying yes, we do need to look at the impact of increasing
numbers of elders, the increasing longevity of elders, and the
proportional shift between elders and the younger populations,
but we expanded our analysis in New York to include several
other major demographic trends that are profoundly shaping the
diverse nature of our communities and that part having a
significant impact on all of our residents.
Most notably, these trends are immigration and migration
patterns, our changing family structures, increasing numbers of
people with disabilities and an increasing racially and
ethnically diverse population.
Looking at the impact of the aging of the baby boomers
together with the increasing elements of diversity reflects the
complexity and the powerful population changes that are under
way. This impact is interactive, it is dynamic, and it has an
overall effect on our families across all age groups, across
all population groups, across all community sectors and
ultimately, the effect on the global well-being of our
communities.
For our second paradigm shift we expanded who would be
involved in doing this looking, who was brought to the table to
understand and plan for the impact of these changes. Project
2015 went beyond convening the human service agencies but was
used to bring 36 very diverse state cabinet-level agencies
together and, as a cohesive entity, go through this future-
oriented process to prepare for both the aging and the
increasing aspects of diversity that is characterizing our
communities.
Project 2015 resulted in tangible outcomes. One major
result was that each of these state agencies concluded and
asserted that they will need to optimize the fit between the
goods and services provided by government and the diverse set
of consumers who use those goods and services and they
identified the steps to do this. Project 2015 has resulted in
modifications to existing services and products, as well as the
development of responsive programs.
I will conclude by simply saying this has been an effort
led by the Aging Network and we find ourselves with a unique
opportunity at this time to bring others to the table, to think
about our communities, to think about our populations, and I
would conclude by saying Project 2015 again has been
transforming. It is all about how we think about our families,
how we think of our elders as a vital community resource, and
how we respond to all our residents across all our community
sectors. This is a direct result of Project 2015 and I am
convinced this change would not have happened had we not taken
the approach we did.
Thank you for inviting me here today and I will look
forward to any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lane follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you very much, Neal. I am curious. You
mentioned you reached out to the arts community and others.
Have they had some good ideas to be helpful in the quality of
life for seniors?
Mr. Lane. Absolutely. It is important to frame this a bit
because we in the first instance worked with the cabinet
agencies and the arts are clearly included in that--parks and
taxation, state education, and the like. The approach we took
was not to say you need to do this per se and you need to do it
this way.
The Governor told each of his cabinet agencies this
demographic, this profound demographic shift is upon us and you
need to tell me how this will affect your business, your
business. So each one of those has developed a plan to look at
how their business will change and how they will be part of
building vital communities in New York State, using the elder
resource.
The Chairman. You talked about the diversity of the baby
boom generation. I am wondering whether they are Hispanic,
African-American, ethnic in some way or different groups.
Mr. Lane. Yes.
The Chairman. What are the commonalities that they have,
regardless of their hyphenation, and what are the differences
because of their hyphenations?
Mr. Lane. That is a very difficult question, because of the
diversity. But if I may risk or hazard an opinion, that would
be that--and I think it is borne out by some studies--I think a
large percentage of this bonus generation, the baby boom
generation, has a tremendous interest in giving back to the
community and doing things beyond what they have done in the
past to be supportive of their communities and engage in their
communities.
I think the trick is, of course, that it would be different
what I will want to do than what Gayla or Pam will want to do
and we do not have any real mechanisms to have Neal help to
figure that out or help Gayla figure that out.
Second, the not-for-profit sector and the other sectors
that exist where the bonus generation could be well used is
really not ready or has not made the transition yet, as has the
workplace, to really understand how they can benefit and
utilize this. It is really just not acceptable to offer elders
the opportunity to lick envelopes and take names. It has to be
considerably more than that.
The Chairman. Yes. The planning New York is doing is
commendable. Do you find other states looking to your model?
Are you cooperating with other states?
Mr. Lane. Yes, indeed. We have had a large number of
inquiries and to that end, we have begun to form a national
collaborative to look at taking Project 2015-like planning to
other states who have an interest and we have 19 national
partners that are going to meet in May in Albany to look at how
we can take this to a national scale.
The Chairman. Very good. We applaud you and commend you and
encourage you to keep it up.
Mr. Lane. Thank you, sir, and indeed I will.
The Chairman. Gayla, take it away.
STATEMENT OF GAYLA S. WOODY, DIRECTOR, AGING PROGRAM
ADMINISTRATOR, CENTRALINA COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS AREA AGENCY ON
AGING, CHARLOTTE, NC
Ms. Woody. Good morning, Chairman Smith. Thank you so much
for this opportunity to talk about how our community is
planning for the demographic changes facing the nation. I am
Gayla Woody and I am the aging program administrator of
Centralina Area Agency on Aging. My region covers nine counties
in North Carolina. This is the largest region and includes the
city of Charlotte.
While the counties in my region range from a large
metropolitan area to a very small rural county, they share at
least one characteristic--the aging of our nation's older
adults; in particular, the demographic cohort known as baby
boomers and the fastest growing population in the country.
While the first wave of baby boomers turns 60 this year, we
cannot afford to sit still and wait. To ensure that America's
communities are prepared to meet the needs of today's and
tomorrow's older adults, preparation and planning must start
now.
I am very proud to report that Mecklenburg County, which
includes the city of Charlotte, has refused to just sit and
wait and see how the aging of the baby boomers will impact the
community. In order to plan accordingly, we convened a broad-
based group to examine the critical issues and launch the
Status of Seniors Initiative to develop strategies to assist
the community in responding.
After 4 years of data-gathering, research, analysis and
strategic planning, Status of Seniors has completed three
reports looking at the impact of the aging of the baby bombers
on our community. Our vision is a senior-friendly community
that values dignity and independence for all older adults.
We have several projects under way and like North Carolina,
we have tried to go outside that traditional framework. One of
the projects is a partnership with the Charlotte Police
Department to implement a training program for new police
officers called First Responders. We are partnering with the
Chamber of Commerce, a local builders association, the
Charlotte Planning Commission and a metropolitan planning
organization to engage in discussions to address the physical
environment in our community, like sidewalks, housing,
transportation. Our community college and the local Council on
Aging are co-hosting a conference this month entitled ``Can
Businesses Boom as Boomers Retire?''
While I was writing these remarks, our local government
television channel ran a 30-minute program about the Status of
Seniors Report and what we can expect from the aging of the
boomers. It is important to note that other than a will and
community volunteers, we have very little in the way of funds
for this initiative.
Senator Dole's home county of Rowan is also one of my
counties. In 2003 we began working together with a project
called Rowan LIFE, Life Improvement for Everyone. Rowan LIFE
has completed their first report and they have a few things
under way, also. Partnering with the United Way, they are
looking at a 211 countywide information and referral system.
Their second project is a collaborative to look at a
uniform and seamless service delivery system. Because of the
planning that they have done with Rowan LIFE, they have
positioned their community for a large, rural health grant that
will bring a couple of hundred thousand dollars toward that
project. Another part of that project is to help manage chronic
illness for improved quality of life for older adults, and one
of the things that we are going to be doing with that project
is partnering some of our health and wellness programs, again
to try to merge with that management of chronic illness.
One of the smallest counties in my region, Lincoln County,
was the only county in North Carolina that did not have a
congregate meal program. So out of a conversation about the
preferences of baby boomers, the restaurant voucher program was
born. The program provides a variety of opportunities for
participants to attend programs on healthy living where they
receive meal vouchers to use in participating local
restaurants. Boomers like to have choice.
One of our other small counties, Cabarrus, has a pilot
project for consumer-directed care. Again for baby boomers,
choice is the important word. The program allows participants
to customize services to their individual needs.
I would urge Congress to consider adding resources to the
Older Americans Act to, encourage and support AAAs to take on
this community planning role. In the long run, this is the most
cost-effective and rational way to brace ourselves for the
boomers and their effect on our nation, and this was ranked
tenth by the 2005 White House Conference on Aging.
North Carolina's State Unit on Aging has also identified
community planning as a high priority and with limited
resources, we are trying to identify strategies for our Aging
Network to adopt.
Aging impacts all parts of life. It is critical that we
educate our communities, collaborate, work with nontraditional
players and aggressively plan to meet the challenges it will
bring with it. The Older Americans Act must be modernized to
help communities prepare for the boomers. Too much is at stake
to ignore the age wave and too much will be lost if we delay.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Woody follows:]
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The Chairman. I assume you find that most of the
communities, they are aware of the aging population, they are
anxious to provide these senior-friendly or retirement-friendly
communities. Do you find any that are unaware of this?
Ms. Woody. No, but it is like Mr. Lane was saying, that the
Aging Network, those of us that are in the network, we know,
but one of the challenges that we have had in Mecklenburg
County is figuring out how to get that message to those outside
the aging network. It took us 4 years to get the Chamber of
Commerce to recognize that the boomers were going to impact how
they do business and what it meant to them.
It has taken us a while. We have had a big meeting a couple
of months ago with the builders and again it is just that whole
education. You know, people hear you and say, ``Yeah, yeah,
yeah'' but it is those nontraditional players that do not quite
understand it the impact it is going to have on their own
individual businesses and their particular disciplines and
issues.
The Chairman. How about your Meals on Wheels programs? What
do you think needs to be changed on the Federal level to make,
whether it is a voucher-style system or something, how do we
make that better? Isn't that a pretty central feature of
services to seniors in terms of activity and nutrition?
Ms. Woody. Oh, from so many different perspectives. Of
course, we all know the impact of good nutrition on health and
wellness. So it is a critical piece and it is very important
that we have these programs in our communities.
What we are seeing is that we have to be a lot more
innovative in how we deliver that service. The restaurant
voucher program is not going to be the answer for everybody but
in some communities it is going to be a great opportunity.
We have one of our other counties that has been doing what
they call a wellness program and they have anywhere from 200 to
250 folks in their congregate program, but they have infused
physical activities, a lot of different program, a lot more
variety. One of our other nutrition sites in North Carolina has
a salad bar and their congregate nutrition site is more like a
restaurant that the seniors come to at the senior center.
So it is just like we were saying before. With the baby
boomers variety is the spice of life and because we are going
to have so many diverse people, we have to have different ways
of addressing these issues.
The Chairman. Well, your fame down there precedes you,
praises for all the good work you are doing.
Ms. Woody. Thank you so much.
The Chairman. We thank you for all of that.
To all of you, as you see ideas, as we take up the
reauthorization of the Older Americans Act, if you have
specific tweaks you need in the statutes, let us know. We are
anxious to improve it.
Pamela? Are there some seniors in San Diego?
STATEMENT OF PAMELA B. SMITH, DIRECTOR, AGING AND INDEPENDENCE
SERVICES, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, SAN DIEGO, CA
Ms. Smith. There are. That weather attracts a lot of folks.
As we consider what this country will look like with the
aging of the population, I guess my message today is it really
is not the bad news. It is the good news that we are all living
longer. There can be no doubt of the many gifts that came out
of the 20th Century and the wonders in medicine and
communication and transportation. Truly the greatest gift is
that the average American is going to have an additional 30
years of life.
While some folks always lived into old age, what we have
done now is figure out how to get almost everyone into old age,
but we just do not know what to do with everybody now that we
have them there. I think that it is a very exciting
opportunity. As you referenced, never before in the history of
the world, really, have we had this many people with this much
to offer. And the possibilities of harnessing this enormous
talent for public good are really endless and exciting.
At retirement, most folks want a break from that early
alarm, the traffic, long work hours, but many wake up 6 months
or a year after they do retire and think, ``Well, now what am I
going to do for 20 to 30 years?'' The average American really
will spend maybe 25 percent of their life in retirement, and
that is a very new phenomenon. When you think about it,
retirement itself is a new phenomenon. A hundred years ago when
we lived mostly on the farm and in small towns, you did not
wake up one day and draw a line in the sand and say, ``I'm not
going to milk the cows anymore.'' You really stayed part of the
farm, of the family, of the community, of your business and
your role maybe changed, but you still were there.
But that really has changed today and very rapidly. We are
now mostly an urban society, mobile. The family often lives
many miles away. We have long work hours now and hectic lives
and then, for the most part, that just ends abruptly at
retirement.
Unfortunately, it is not as easy as you would think for
people to be successful in this new phase of life. We really
know that for vital aging we have to stay physically fit, we
need to stay intellectually fit, but what we are really
learning and what is maybe the most important is we have to
continue to have meaning and purpose in life.
Many older adults want to get involved in their community
and when they do decide they want to, unfortunately they are
often given meaningless tasks, as opposed to meaningful tasks.
There is too much envelope-stuffing that is out there and part
of it is our mental model. For some reason, you know, we are a
youth-focussed society and older adults, we do not embrace the
talents and the things that they bring to the table.
But understandably, many do not stay long at the envelope-
stuffing job. They end up going home and sadly, many of them
sit and watch too much television, become inactive, and start
disappearing. Obesity, type 2 diabetes and depression are
growing problems among the older adult population. Sadly, older
adults are one of the segments of the population that has the
highest suicide rate.
I did a ride-along a few years ago with our public
administrator's office and an elderly senior had passed away
and no family or friends, so we stepped in to manage the
estate. This woman had been dead for several days and her house
was a filthy, cluttered mess, literally a rat's nest. Her last
years had not been pleasant ones and it broke my heart to think
that we had just lost her.
What was additionally sad is as we were going through her
papers, we discovered this woman had been a teacher. She had a
tremendous amount to give; if we had stayed connected and
valued her, think of the difference she could have made even in
this phase in a child's life and in our community. It becomes
both a taxpayer burden but, more importantly, a real human
loss.
No one wants to be put out to pasture but it is hard to
stay excited about being physically active if you have no
meaningful purpose. So we need to do better about how we are
doing that, and that is what I want to mention, a few programs
we are doing in San Diego County.
We have about 3 million people, large urban area, small
towns, rural, and we decided that if you look at maybe what is
America's only growing natural resource, our older adults, we
need to tap into that. One of the areas that we tapped into was
the area of intergenerational, working with kids. We have a lot
of single parents, we have families where mom and dad work
multiple jobs, and consequently, less time to spend with their
kids, yet we have all of these seniors that have the great gift
of time to give.
So one of our programs we did is we tapped seniors into
helping our families come off of welfare, helping families.
They mentored four to five families, mentored the whole family,
came at this job with a passion, helped these families do the
things that were critically important to not only get off of
welfare but stay off of welfare, because many of them did not
have a good support system to help them.
We have a residential high school for foster kids in San
Diego County, San Pasqual Academy. These are kids that are not
going to be reunified with their family, they are not going to
be adopted, they are bouncing around the system. So we created
this high school to really help them get the high school
diploma. Nationally, 50 percent of foster kids do not graduate
from high school.
After we were up and running a couple of years we moved
older adults on campus. We took 10 houses and we offered them
reduced rent in exchange for volunteering with the kids, and
their job description was to ``care about these kids''. I will
tell you it was like magic from day one. The relationships that
were formed, they did all the things that caring, loving
grandparents do in a child's life. They garden. They cook. They
have poetry slams. We had an eight-man football team there, but
now we have somebody on the sidelines to cheer for those kids.
Our high school graduation rate at San Pasqual Academy is
90 percent. Now as kids go off to college, those kids have gone
off and when they have a holiday break, they come back and stay
with the seniors because those are the relationships that they
formed.
Additionally, one of the programs that we did that has been
very successful is First Five. In California we have a special
tobacco tax that helps kids zero to five be school-ready. So we
have many programs in our community that are working on that.
Well, if you add seniors to the mix, and we did and for a small
stipend, seniors come in and start working with these kids to
help them be school-ready. What a perfect fit this was, this
army of older adults out there who came in. We know the
importance in early childhood development, brain development,
of both nurturing but that brain development is there.
We had a terrific outcome of the first year of how these
kids exceeded all of the other kids in the programs in their
behavioral skills, in their social skills, in their verbal
skills. Teachers, 100 percent of teachers said these kids were
more ready to learn, having to do with seniors, having seniors
there.
I have a picture up there I would like to leave with you,
give you, and it is Grandpa Chuck, who is a retired State
Department employee, who retired. Six months into retirement
his wife says, ``You've got to get out of the house and go find
something to do.'' He became one of our volunteers and this
picture, as you can see, is worth 1,000 words. He tells me one
of the greatest joys of his life is working with these kids
that all come out of a domestic violence shelter and in
transitional housing.
As we start looking at this, and I think the issue here is
it is not just nice and cute to have older adults be part of
civic engagement; they can truly be part of our community and
helping us solve critical community problems. We have moved
their involvement with foster kids not just at San Pasqual now
but out into our neighborhoods. They mentor foster kids. They
support foster families. They liaison with foster families and
schools to help kids do better. These programs have been
amazingly successful.
One last individual I would like to tell you about is at
Helix High School, which is a big, comprehensive high school in
San Diego County and they have 22 percent older adults in their
community, which in my mind is a gold mine that you are living
in the middle of. But the high school had never met the senior
center a half a mile apart. You know, these parallel lines in
our communities never crossed.
As we got together and said what could we start doing, the
senior center said, ``Well, Bill, World War II veteran who is
twice widowed, no longer drives, is always looking for somebody
to play chess. Would there be any high school kids that would
want to play chess with Bill?''
So what they decided is Bill would go down and they have a
tutorial program for ninth-graders were all ninth-grade kids
make sure they are current with their homework and up to date
and up to speed. On the first day, as an incentive for those
kids in finishing their homework, they could go play chess with
Bill but the question was would anybody want to go play chess
with this old guy? On the first day 50 kids scrambled to get
their homework done to go out and play chess.
Immediately Bill started going every day from 6:45 until
noon. He played 12 games at a time in an old trailer out back,
but he taught chess etiquette, he taught manners. It was
another caring adult checking in with these kids. How are you
doing? How is your life? They are checking in with Bill.
Bill died recently but his last 2 years of life, as
contrasted to the teacher that we found, were filled with joy
and happiness. His son sent us a letter and I would just like
to read a couple of sentences. The son lived out of town. ``Our
father used to share his personal stories and experiences at
Helix High, as well as his utter delight in forming and shaping
the students through the game of chess. He was very proud of
his students and the progress they were making in chess and in
their lives.''
We have a tremendous opportunity here if we can tap this
enormous talent. Of course, everybody wins. The kids thrive,
families thrive, but the seniors have a reason to get up. As
one of the San Pasqual seniors told me, I have to be at my best
because those kids need me. So it is an absolute win for all.
In closing, the one last comment I would like to say is
just that when the University of Utah did get to be the first
nonBCS team to go to the BCS bowl, they took $17 million to the
Mountain West Conference, so BYU got a share of that, which was
about $1.5-2 million.
The Chairman. That is the best thing we ever got out of
Alex Smith. I will tell you that. He is a tremendous player and
you are justly very proud of your son.
Ms. Smith. Thank you for the opportunity to comment today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]
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The Chairman. Pamela, I have some questions for you but we
have been joined by my colleague, Senator Carper of Delaware.
He is formerly a great Governor of that State. I am sure he has
all the answers.
So why don't we turn to you for your statement or
questions?
Senator Carper. We are going to introduce our clean air
bill that you and I have been discussing and we are going to
have a press conference to announce it in 18 minutes. My staff
said, ``You can go to the hearing and you can stay 5 minutes
and then you need to come back.'' So I am going to slip out for
a little bit but I will be back. I just want to thank our
witnesses for being here and thank our chairman for convening
us and again I would like to enter my statement for the record.
The Chairman. You know, Pam, as I hear your stories about
these individuals and you start putting names and faces on
successes and tragedies, I think of the teacher you described
who died alone and obviously not in a happy place. I do not
want to in any way suggest that choice should not be central to
a senior's retirement. They should be able to choose whether
they want to do something or not. But hearing you describe the
chess club and these other ideas, I guess it is really a
question or comment to all of you.
I wonder if much attention has been given to many of these
programs for youth that could really benefit by the mentoring
of retired teachers, retired professionals. I wonder if there
has been any outreach to recruit scoutmasters for the Boy
Scouts or den leaders for the Club Scouts or I do not know what
the Girl Scouts call their leaders but Girl Scouts is a great
program.
My wife is involved in a program in Oregon called Smart and
what it is is adults reading to children and helping them to
get attached to books. I can think of 1,000 organizations that
if senior programs could hook them up with these different
youth things, it would just be a tremendous thing. I was a Boy
Scout, so that comes to my mind as something that would be
very, very helpful to that organization, to recruit great
scoutmasters.
I wonder if there is much outreach to the church
communities, the various denominations. They all have great
programs that involve people. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Is there any organized way to get volunteer organizations
together with seniors with tremendous talents and skills?
Ms. Smith. Really what I think you are talking about is
crossing those parallel lines and getting those sectors
together and it used to happen a little more naturally in our
communities in the way that we lived and I think now we have to
jump-start it. I think you have hit on the very issue.
What we have is this enormous talent and this tremendous
gift of time that they have and they do want to be involved,
but how do they connect? What I find in our community and I
think is true of many is that entities deal with seniors or
they deal with kids; they do not deal with both, and people
just do not cross.
That's why we try to tackle more serious issues, as opposed
to lighter issues. It's not just gee, that is nice, but it is
really critical, and we try to get as much publicity as
possible. We try to talk about it as much as possible. Frankly,
we really are trying to change the way people think because
again, a lot of moms--back 20 or 40 years ago there were not as
many working women, they were the volunteers in the schools and
as we changed and more people are working and again single
households, well, who can fill that void? Obviously older
adults are a prime resource.
So I think the outreach needs to be there. We have done a
lot of brainstorming on how to do outreach. There are a lot of
retired teachers associations, retired county employees that
were social workers and things, and trying to highlight it.
What we find is we are able to reach the individuals. The
lag has been in the community, the structural lag in that they
really are asking them to do meaningful things. Everybody looks
at seniors and says oh, great, free help, but I will tell you
they traditionally have given them the low-hanging fruit of the
organization that people really do not want to do. If we can
start changing that and showing the difference that they are
making and highlight that and also, I think, find ways to help
organizations.
One of the things we did a few years ago was put out a
request for proposal, $10,000 grants in our community to people
that would start intergenerational programs, to organizations,
and we were going to give five of those. We had so many
beautiful requests come in that I went back to my peers in
county government and said we have to fund more than that, and
we were able to actually--that year we had more money than
other years--fund 25 of them. These were wonderful programs,
just like that, through every kind of ethnic group. We had
Africa Corps and Jewish Family Services and Operation Samahan
and all these programs that came.
It is not rocket science to think we have to pull these two
generations together but it is just not happening. A little bit
of startup, a little bit of coordination really makes it
happen.
Helix High School now has an intergenerational coordinator.
Once they saw the value of Bill and once those teachers saw
that Bill coming on campus was helping kids stay connected and
do better, they have an intergenerational coordinator now and
they have seniors on campus teaching cooking and sewing and
knitting and all kinds of programs to work with kids.
The Chairman. I love the words intergenerational
coordinator. I think we are going to need that. I wonder, is
that something you think we ought to put in, incentivize in the
Older Americans Act?
Ms. Smith. I clearly think in updating the act for today's
world and where we are and this potential, it could be huge if
public policy could be out there and have that, incentivized in
a way to tap into this.
Again it is choice. It may not be for everyone, but I will
tell you this. We have done a whole lot of programs along these
veins and you think well, will seniors want to come and work?
It is one thing about kids zero to five; they are kind of cute
and cuddly. But how about teenage foster kids? They are not
quite as cute; teenagers in general are not as cute.
The Chairman. That is for sure.
Ms. Smith. Every opportunity we have built, they have come.
We have waiting lists for seniors to move to San Pasqual to
work with these kids. We have waiting lists for seniors to
participate in these programs.
So if we could figure out a way to really--and we are
seeing it being institutionalized. Our First Five, which has
money coming in now, gives extra points for when they do
requests for proposals, no matter what they are doing, even if
it is helping families access health care or clean up the
environment or whatever we are doing, extra credit is given
with an intergenerational approach.
So if you put it into your system and people are really
thinking about attaching this and infusing it into the way you
do business.
I am a big believer that stipends are very powerful for
attracting seniors, too. There is a cost of volunteering,
literally getting there, gas, all of that. Some of our
programs, we are able to put a little bit of stipend in. Any
time you are working with kids you have to do background
checks, you know, and somebody needs to coordinate it. But it
is a very small investment for a huge return.
Mr. Lane. If I may?
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Lane. Maybe I will start with a story because it is a
personal story. My dad retired at age 67 from the Wharton
School. He was a Wharton School graduate, businessman all his
life and a very, very smart man. When he retired, of course he
played golf and read books for 6 months, just like everybody
else and then looked around. What am I going to do with my
life? He wanted to give back to his community, so he looked
around for those volunteer opportunities.
He went to--well, I will not name the organization. He went
to an organization and what they did was sit him outside a room
and he took names for 3 or 4 hours every day. Well, a Wharton
School graduate, they are only going to do that a few times. He
spent the next 3 years the most unhappy years of his life and
it was a very sad thing for our family.
Finally, by luck basically, he hit on the county historical
society, who was developing a museum. Well, here is a man with
tremendous business skills who was, for the next 15 years, the
business manager, if you will, for this initiative that created
this wonderful, wonderful museum, and he was never happier. But
there was no way for him to figure out where his talents could
be used and what it was that created meaningful life for him.
He had to kind of just luck into it after a very painful period
of time.
So I think it is not only readying institutions; it is also
helping people who it is not immediately apparent to them where
they want to engage. So I think that is part of it.
I think there is one other part. It goes back to the
Project 2015 initiative. That is engaging all sectors to look
at themselves in the context of the changing environment
because it becomes pretty apparent to those sectors how these
resources can be used after they really engage and think about
it.
So it is not just intergenerational. It is about serving
elders, elders serving elders. It is about a variety of
opportunities that I think we can create if we do it
thoughtfully and engage at various levels.
Ms. Smith. Senator, could I add? Serving each generation,
we have a program, part of the Older Americans Act caregiver
money. We use a little bit of our local money and we pair a
senior with a teenage foster youth in the community and each of
them get a small stipend. What they do is go visit a frail
elderly, giving that caregiver a break. In fact, this program
is called the Breakers.
So we have the senior who is more mobile and able to get
out is mentoring this foster youth, encouraging them to think
about a field, a career in health care, social work, or any of
those, but they are doing community service and the target is
we are really benefiting the caregiver, who gets a break, and
they are visiting that person.
So the same dollar that is coming down for a stipend is
serving four, not to mention that the foster family is getting
a bit of a respite by knowing that the foster youth is with a
caring adult.
The Chairman. Very good.
Ms. Woody. We do need opportunities to educate our
community. Just recently some of our ombudsmen went into a
local high school to do a workshop and a class on older adults
and at the end of that class, the youth had a different
appreciation for what it meant to be an older person. I think
we have to do some of that because there is some ageism going
on in our country.
The other thing that I think we have to do is generate new
opportunities. It is just limited by our own creativity. You
know, Pam has talked about a lot of different programs. Look at
the planning initiative. In North Carolina we have a number of
older adult volunteers who are doing walkability studies in
their own communities to survey and evaluate where there are no
appropriate walking opportunities, identify areas that are not
quite safe and changes need to be made, there may need to be
longer lights at crosswalks in order for pedestrians to
actually walk across the street.
There are just so many things but sometimes there need to
be a few folks to help brainstorm some of these ideas and
perhaps, as Pam said, open the doors to make some of these
kinds of things happen, some of the things that you all were
talking about in New York.
The Chairman. It has been very, very helpful to me to hear
these ideas. Again I would invite you to give us specific
changes you would like to see in the Older Americans law
because we are in a place where we will be making those changes
and there is nothing like experience to tell us where we can do
better.
Pamela, what is the retirement age for an NFL football
player?
Ms. Smith. Well, that is a fairly short career, so you have
to have something else. We hope it is quite long.
The Chairman. Yes. Well, we hope he is a starter next year
and----
Ms. Smith. He is. He is the guy.
The Chairman. We wish him every success.
There is a vote scheduled for 11 and we have arrived at
that hour. I suspect what has happened to Senator Kohl is he is
very anxiously engaged in a pretty heated hearing and he would
love to have been here. We will include his statement in the
record and leave the record open in case he has any questions,
which I believe he had for some of you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kohl follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Herb Kohl
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today's hearing is a fitting topic
for Older Americans Month.
We face an unprecedented tsunami of retirees. In 2011, the
oldest of the approximately 77 million Baby Boomers will turn
65, and by 2024, all Boomers will be over the age of 60. They
are the largest, healthiest, most energetic and best educated
generation in history.
The Boomers are certain to redefine aging. And our nation's
``aging network''--the people and organizations who provide
support for seniors--must redefine themselves too.
Boomers expect to make positive contributions to the nation
and their communities. Many would like to continue working,
either to stay active and productive or to save for a more
secure retirement. That is why I introduced the Older Worker
Opportunity Act, which makes it easier for older workers to
stay on the job and continue to provide expertise to our
nation's businesses.
Other Boomers will look to mix work and leisure with
community service. Older Americans bring a wealth of talent and
experience to their communities, and many are eager to make a
meaningful contribution. We look forward to hearing today about
innovative ways Boomers are engaging in the community issues,
and how the aging network is adapting to these new volunteers.
Whether working, volunteering, or just relaxing, many of
the coming retirees will rely on some services provided through
the Older Americans Act. Scheduled for reauthorization this
year, the OAA provides important services for seniors,
including Meals on Wheels, elder abuse prevention, and
caregiver support. The reauthorization will occur at the same
time OAA programs are weakened by chronic under funding--a
trend the President's budget would continue. The budget
proposal actually cuts OAA programs at the Administration on
Aging by $28 million.
Older Americans Month is an excellent time to plan ahead
for the changes the retiring Boomers will bring. Again, I thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, and I look forward
to hearing from our witnesses.
The Chairman. Senator Salazar, we were just closing up.
Welcome. The stage is yours. We have just had some tremendous
testimony, Senator, on what they are doing in New York and
North Carolina and California on retirement activities and
ideas for improving the Older Americans Act and we were just
gaveling out but if you have a statement or a question for any
of these folks, you are welcome.
Senator Salazar. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much and
thank you for holding this important hearing and continuing to
lead this committee.
I have a statement for the record that I will submit for
the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Salazar follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Ken Salazar
I would like to thank Chairman Smith and Ranking Member
Kohl for holding this important hearing.
Today's hearing provides a wonderful opportunity for
Members of this Committee to learn about the innovative
strategies percolating throughout our country.
While preparing for the demographic shifts is a formidable
task, I am confident that states and local communities will
find ways to both respond to our elder's unique needs and
capitalize on their strengths and interest in giving back to
their communities.
There is a vibrant and dynamic aging network in Colorado
comprised of the Colorado Commission on the Aging, 16 Area
Agencies on Aging, our county departments of social services,
dozens of community-based organizations, and other private
industry partners.
Many of these service providers have endured tough budget
years. But they have survived and even thrived in the tight
fiscal climate by developing effective and efficient programs
that coordinate their services and build partnerships.
While I applaud their efforts, I believe that the federal
government cannot turn our back on our elders. This year, the
Bush Administration has proposed cuts to critical funding for
seniors' programs at the Administration on Aging.
I hope that Congress can find a way to maintain funding for
these important programs. Last month, I joined with Senators
Collins and Clinton in a letter to the Senate Appropriations
Committee urging the restoration of this critical funding.
I am eager to hear from today's witnesses about the
creative strategies employed in New York, North Carolina, and
San Diego, It is my hope that we can use your ideas to
strengthen the Older Americans Act during reauthorization.
In particular, I am interested in hearing about how your
communities have embraced the growing interest in civic
engagement. As with previous generations, today's retirees have
a wealth of experiences and skills that can benefit
communities.
Just last week I met with two wonderful Colorado Seniors,
Moisey and Sofiya Sandler, who are giving back to the Denver
community.
Former professors at the University of Moscow, the Sandlers
are volunteers with Senior Companion Program operated out of
Seniors Inc. They use their knowledge of the Russian to
translate for seniors who need help navigating the health care
and social service system.
They have also served as translators for large
international conferences that have come to Colorado. Most
notably, they assisted the Russian delegation that traveled to
Denver for the Summit of the 8.
The Sandlers are not alone. There are many seniors who have
so much to offer their communities--as the Baby Boomers begin
to retire, we will see a rise in seniors looking for service
opportunities. Their volunteer work provides benefits
communities and keeps them active and healthy. We must work to
support and cultivate networks that are responding to their
needs.
Again, I thank the Chairman and Ranking member for holding
this hearing.
Senator Salazar. I will make two quick comments. One, the
agencies that deal with the aging population in my state, there
are 16 of those organizations and they do a tremendous job in
Colorado. I have worked with them on issues ranging from
financial exploitation of the elderly and preventing that
financial exploitation from occurring to other kinds of social
issues that our elderly are facing in their homes in our state
and I very much appreciate the great work that those networks
do on behalf of the citizens of my state.
The second comment I would make is that it is obviously and
I am sure it was described in your comments, a very big issue
for our times because as this bulge of the baby boom population
comes into senior status we are facing some enormous pressures
and issues at the national level that we just need to be ahead
of.
So this hearing is a very timely and a very important one
and I appreciate Senator Smith's leadership of this committee.
I thank the witnesses for giving us your information on how we
might be able to address some of the challenges that we face.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Again our thanks to you. You have added
measurably to our Senate record and we will look forward to
working with you. Remember, our doors are open and our minds
are open and our hearts are certainly especially open to the
causes that you are serving.
Senator Salazar and I are part of the baby boom generation,
so we are counting on you to be there for us.
Thank you and with that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Questions from Senator Kohl for Gayla S. Woody
Question. What two or three ideas or changes do you think
we should consider as we reauthorize the Older Americans Act?
Answer. Provide funding for Area Agencies on Aging to do
Community Planning.
With my experiences in both Rowan and Mecklenburg Counties,
I believe having time to work with my local counties will do
several things:
Enable us to have a comprehensive community Plan for all
agencies to be involved.
Help coordinate community efforts from various agencies
toward implementation of the Plan.
Position the community to leverage additional funds from
grants and other sources in support of the coordinated
community implementation of the Plan.
Implement and Fund Aging and Disability Resource Centers.
The single most often repeated complaint I hear from
caregivers and consumers is: ``I don't know what services and
resources are available''. In Mecklenburg County the children's
network has successfully implemented a Child Resource Center
that has provided a community visibility for children's
services. That type of resource center for aging and disability
would be very useful in helping older adults and their families
coordinate their own services.
Question. What perspective did the business community
provide in your planning, and how do you think businesses will
change to target this new market of senior consumers?
Answer. In my early experiences with our planning and
trying to target the business community, it was more from the
perspective of what we can do for them rather than what they
can do for us. Our key example is the work we are doing in the
area of housing. We convened a large seminar with builders.
What we have found is that many businesses have not yet
realized the impact of aging on their business or that the Baby
Boomers may well demand that they change the way they do
business.
One of the large tasks ahead of the Aging Network is to
help bring Aging to the forefront for businesses. There are
several areas of concern:
Workforce. Have businesses considered the changing
workforce? Have they considered how the retiring Baby Boomers
will impact their business? Will they need to restructure jobs
to allow for more part time work or job sharing? Will they need
to find attractive ways to entice Baby Boomers with significant
knowledge of their industry to stay involved in some way?
Health Care. This is certainly a major issue for business.
However, with individuals living longer and working longer, how
will the whole health care environment change? Will companies
be able to pay minimum wage if they simply provide health care?
Or will Medicare for persons over 65 change the need for health
care coverage provided by business?
The Product. Depending on the product of the business, the
Baby Boomers will have a variety of impacts. In our meeting
with the Housing Industry, some of the implications are that
Baby Boomers want more flexibility, more willing to downsize,
want a home where they can Age in Place within walking distance
of needed services, and universal design. In our southern
communities, the suburbs have been the location for housing and
the bigger the better. For seniors who could no longer maintain
their home, there has been the move to the retirement
communities. Baby Boomers don't necessarily seem inclined to
move to retirement communities. We may see more NORCs or
Naturally Occurring Residential Communities that consist of
smaller, easy to maintain homes or condos in multi-use areas.
In our community, we have found the most important first
step is just to get businesses to recognize that the Age Wave
is going to bring change to their business.
Question. What other state and local sources of funding do
you have and how can the federal government make more of an
investment to leverage your other sources of funding?
Answer. With both the Rowan and Mecklenburg planning
initiatives, we have had no other funds to help with our
process. In Mecklenburg we actually sold advertisements to
businesses in order to generate funds to print our report. In
Rowan, the hospital contributed funds to generate the report.
Now that the first implementation strategies have been
developed in both of these communities, they are looking for
ways to implement the strategies. In this process with no
funding, we are advocating for existing agencies to ``adopt''
some of our implementation strategies that fit within their
Agency Mission. In Rowan we talked about how to activate groups
of older adults to provide services through volunteer programs.
Educating and advocating with local agencies and establishing
volunteer programs take time and effort. For instance, in Rowan
County one of the implementation strategies was to implement a
county wide Information and Referral system that would operate
24 hours a day and seven days a week. Because of our
collaboration with the Rowan County United Way, they have taken
on this strategy as a mission of their organization. They are
using their resources and revenues to implement the 211 system,
but we used our ``manpower'' to advocate for the need for this
service and for United Way to take leadership on
implementation.
In Mecklenburg County, the Board of County Commissioners
will include money in their 2007 budget for Status of Seniors.
But the funds will be used for staff to apply for grants,
educate the community about aging issues, and solicit
businesses and organizations to work in partnership with the
Status of Seniors initiative. It will not be specifically used
to ``pay for'' implementation of a specific strategy. But the
funds from the Commissioners will enable us to leverage other
sources, businesses, and other organizations in order to
achieve our various goals. This is the way I can see the
federal government making a significant investment that would
allow us to leverage other community resources and grants.
For both the Rowan and Mecklenburg projects, I have been a
key ``staffer'' pushing the initiative and providing the
``glue'' to hold the projects together. But with my many other
responsibilities, and two projects of this type, my ability to
work on these projects has been limited and therefore our
progress has been slow. I am proud to say these communities
have moved forward relentlessly but the progress has been much
slower than we hoped.
Let me again thank you for the opportunity to share with
you some of our experiences in North Carolina.
------
Questions from Senator Kohl for Pamela B. Smith
Question. What two or three ideas or changes do you think
we should consider as we reauthorize the Older Americans Act?
Answer. Adding language and funding for Intergenerational
Coordinators to the Older Americans Act, in particular to work
with children in the Child Welfare System, would be an
important step in placing emphasis on prevention--for both
seniors and children. We know that both parties benefit--
studies show that children that come from dysfunctional
families often can become successful adults if they have a
caring adult in their life who doesn't want anything in return
and seniors are healthier if they continue to have meaning and
purpose in life.
Allowing more flexibility in spending existing money in the
Older Americans Act would be a huge benefit. It now comes so
categorical it is difficult to be efficient or creative. We
need more room to try new things as the boomers arrive--they
are going to require us to be innovative.
Of course, always the toughest issue is money. The funds
from the Older Americans Act have simply not kept up with the
growth of the aging population, nor increased costs to operate
the program.
Question. What advice do you have for social service
organizations that are looking to utilize seniors as
volunteers?
Answer. The biggest mistake that organizations make is
giving the menial jobs that no one else wants to the senior
volunteers. Too many organizations have a ``one size fits all''
mentality when it comes to working with older adults. They use
a generic volunteer job description rather than tailoring the
talents of the senior to the needs of the organization. We have
found much more success with working with the senior to find
what talents, skills and experiences they bring to the table
and match those to the needs of the organization.
We have also found success in defining outcomes, not
process, to the seniors. For instance, our senior mentors
working with foster kids are told our goal is to help the kids
graduate from high school. Then we ask how the senior can help
us achieve that goal? Traditional volunteers are given a list
of ``things'' to do--and usually not meaningful things.
Personalizing the volunteer experience and valuing what the
senior brings, along with valuing their opinion, is critically
important.
Question. What role do you believe the Federal government
should play to best spur retiring boomers to service?
Answer. Remove barriers and offer incentives:
There are barriers that which need to be removed. Volunteer
opportunities may offer small stipends to cover the cost of
volunteering. Sometimes this is a small money amount (usually
about $200 per month) or a card for gasoline and other
transportation or even a grocery store voucher. But for many
seniors who are on SSI, Section 8 Housing, Medicaid or some
other government subsidized program, this stipend counts as
income for their eligibility for those programs. The irony here
is that these seniors often live in areas where we have the
most needs, yet the local seniors often cannot participate for
fear of losing their eligibility to these programs. There is
language which authorizes the Foster Grandparent program
(seniors volunteering with special need children) which
excludes the small remuneration they receive from the program
from countable income for other programs. Similar language is
needed for seniors who receive any stipend related to working
with children.
Another way to encourage civic engagement (especially for
seniors) volunteering with children in the child welfare
system) would be to offer and incentive, such as a tax credit
or other tax break. Small incentives go a long way to formalize
and recognize the contribution that senior volunteers make.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
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