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From the Director We All Need Help
From the Director
We All Need Help
by Catherine R. May, Executive Director
Elder Services has a meaningful and inclusive Mission: "to provide Berkshire elders the opportunity to live with dignity, independence, and self determination, and to achieve the highest possible quality of life."
As of June 2000, Elder Services has 146 employees, with more than half of those working just a few hours each day. The number of Berkshire elders, per the 1990 census, was 31,000.
Of those 31,000, the many elders who need assistance to remain independent need more help than can be administered solely by our very committed and hardworking staff, or by the workers from the provider agencies from whom we buy services.
Elder services needs help helping elders - and hundreds of volunteers from all corners of this large county have come forward to provide the help that is needed.
In order to receive and resolve complaints from long term care facility residents, trained and certified volunteer ombudsman cover every nursing home in the county - working under the Ombudsman Program Supervisor and Assistant at Elder Services.
Sixty area elders have volunteer Money Management assistance volunteers; this group trained and supervised by the lone staffer, the Money Management Coordinator at Elder Services.
SHINE (Serving Health Information Needs of Elders) volunteers, who willingly study and research the intricacies of Medicare, Medicaid and other health insurance benefits and programs, work in the county’s Senior Centers and visit homebound elders, all overseen and kept current by the SHINE Coordinator at Elder Services.
Grocery shopping is a critical need of many homebound elders - and Elder Services can pay homemakers to do this vital shopping for elders - but instead we recruit volunteers who will do the shopping, and maybe even become friends with the older person they are assisting. By not using paid grocery shoppers, we are saving public funds that can be better used to purchase services, such as Personal Care, that a volunteer cannot perform.
Many elders need rides to medical appointments, and Elder Services’ volunteers help there too; elders who are lonely and isolated can have the company of a friendly visitor, recruited and screened through the Volunteer Services area.
Another of Elder Services’ programs is requiring more help from community volunteers. Due to increased costs for Congregate Meals and Meals on Wheels, with no commensurate increase in public funding for these important services, we are now looking more to volunteers both to help serve meals at congregate meal sites and to deliver meals to those needing Meals on Wheels.
To continue serving all who need meals, while coping with increased costs and flat funding, Elder Services can look only to staffing costs to reduce expenses. Thus, as of September, some congregate meal sites which regularly serve less than twenty elders on any given day of the week, will not have paid Elder Services staff present on those days. (Currently, the congregate meal sites in Dalton, Hinsdale, Becket, Lee and Lenox are fully operated by local volunteers, usually working with the town’s Council on Aging). More movement in the direction of volunteers at congregate lunch sites and delivering Meals on Wheels appears inevitable unless federal funding under the Older American Act catches up with today’s elder needs.
So, we at Elder Services, in concert with the Councils on Aging, will again be looking to the good and caring people of the Berkshires to help us as we assist the area’s older residents in need. We all need help!