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TESTIMONY ON THE SENIOR ALLIANCE AREA AGENCY ON
AGING
1-C DRAFT MULTI YEAR AREA PLAN FOR FISCAL YEARS 2007-2009
June 7, 2006
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Adult Well-Being Services is a community
based nonprofit agency that provides services to older adults and adults
with disabilities. We were established in 1953 and have expanded from
one of the country’s first senior centers to a comprehensive agency
serving senior adults, their caregivers and the people they care for in
a variety of ways. We provide outreach and assistance, case management,
health promotion, substance abuse prevention and treatment as well as
mental health and guardianship services.
Currently we have several programs in
Western and Southern Wayne County. We have a site for adults with
developmental disabilities in Wayne, where we provide skill building,
family support, cultural and community outings, supports coordination
and supported employment services. We also have a site in Dearborn
Heights which is where our TSA programs are headquartered.
Our care giving support program in TSA’s
service area is going strong. We provide information to caregivers, help
locate needed supplies and equipment and hold monthly support group
meetings for caregivers. Adult Well-Being Services has extensive
experience with providing in-home respite, respite services for
grandparents raising grandchildren and for caregivers of older adults
with dementia and other chronic health care needs.
We have always admired TSA’s commitment
to providing high quality services to older adults. We join with others
in congratulating TSA for stabilizing its resources and continuing its
dedication to maximizing those resources to best meet the needs in the
region.
We agree with the observation in your
draft plan that transportation remains both a top priority for attention
and barrier for seniors to receive the services that they need. We have
recently teamed up with transportation advocates and planners in the
Detroit area, and invite you to join with us as we seek solutions to
this vexing problem. We believe that together we can offer strength in
numbers to more effectively advocate at the state and federal levels for
more funding for innovative transportation solutions.
We read with great interest that the most
frequent information requests include caregiver support. It needs to be
mentioned that one of our caregivers who testified that support groups
were a lifeline feels honored, validated and affirmed by TSA’
recognition of her testimony. She thanks you!
Through our work with caregivers
throughout Southeast Michigan, we find that there simply are not enough
resources available to meet the need for caregiver support, education
and respite services. We have had the opportunity to develop a model of
respite care based on customer choice or self-determination – they may
have home health personnel come to their home, or they may utilize day
care or assisted living or even a nursing home for overnight stays. We
have hired persons of their choice to provide the care. Every time we
provide the service, we get the response that it is just not enough
time. We would like to join with TSA in their efforts to find new ways
to expand this type of service. It is desperately needed.
We agree that family and friends who
still provide the bulk of long term care to older adults do so often at
great cost to themselves. Many lose income when they change jobs, work
part time or even quit working to provide care. The stress and lack of
self-care can lead to health issues and even early death, for the
caregivers themselves. The unfortunate death of Dana Reeves may help to
bring this more into the public’s awareness.
We encourage TSA to provide resources to
provide in-home respite for people for whom adult day services is not
appropriate. For people who are caring for those with Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s or other more physically and mentally challenging illnesses,
adult day and vacation respite services do not adequately meet their
needs. While vacation respite is a wonderful service, the work in
transporting people to and preparing them for nursing home or other
facilities is cumbersome and costly. Given the challenges and costs
associated with this type of respite, we would encourage TSA to look at
providing in-home respite opportunities which are less cumbersome and
eliminate the preparation costs associated with nursing home admissions.
In terms of education and support, we
were part of a group of agencies that just completed the 2006
Care-Giving conferences where people received information and support.
More than 500 people participated. Conferences such as these are the
base of future work with caregivers. Identifying caregivers through the
conferences, we can now contact them through follow up, invite them to
support groups and make ourselves available as a link to important
services. The publicity generated by these conferences raises the
community’s awareness of care-giving. Since we know that more and more
people are going to be assuming care giving responsibilities, it is
important that we continue to offer education and support.
The importance of care giving support
groups cannot be overlooked. While there is a lot of hard work
associated with getting caregivers to attend these groups, the payoff is
well worth the effort. Adult Well-Being Services recently surveyed
people about support groups and the response we received has been
overwhelmingly positive. People have expressed tremendous appreciation
for support groups. 100% of the respondents cited an average of eight
areas where they actually felt that support groups improved their lives:
they can now ask others for help where they did not do so before; they
have learned new ways to provide care; learned new ways to manage
behavior; they feel less stressed, guilty & isolated; they are less
likely to become angry; they now understand they must take time for
themselves and do make time for themselves. As a result of our education
on advocacy, caregivers responded that they feel empowered by being able
to advocate for themselves through providing testimony and writing
letters.
We heartily endorse TSA’s objective to
establish a coalition of 25 aging network providers. We would be greatly
interested in being a partner in this effort.
We look forward to working with TSA to
continue to provide needed services to our rapidly growing population of
senior boomers.
Thank you.
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