From the Director
Elder Services’ year in review…2008
By Robert P. Dean
This past year, we served more than 10,000 seniors, caregivers, and individuals with disabilities, supporting them in their desire to continue to live in their own homes and communities, with dignity and independence, and to achieve the highest possible quality of life. At the heart of Elder Services is a commitment to honor this preference with all the resources available to us. Elder Services’ staff — more than a hundred strong — worked tirelessly throughout the year to ensure that each senior we served received the services they needed. More than 400 Elder Services volunteers contributed 30,000 volunteer hours to a variety of programs and services including grocery shopping, transportation to medical appointments, money management, nursing home ombudsman and health insurance information counseling.
Our Information and Referral program continues to serve as a “yellow pages” for seniors and for those who are not yet seniors — and as a place to turn for those who do not know where to turn. Last year we responded to more than 5,700 calls for help. Our Protective programs continue to work with elders who are victims of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, financial exploitation, or neglect. Our Caregiver programs work to ensure that caregivers receive the supports they need as they face the daily challenges and rigors of caregiving. Our Senior Employment program helps seniors find training and employment opportunities. Our Housing programs offer a variety of enriched and supportive housing options to help seniors remain in the community. We continue to produce our local Berkshire Senior TV shows on a monthly basis, and to publish our monthly newspaper, "Berkshire Senior," both of provide important information and advocacy to those we serve.
Over the past year our core Home Care programs (State Home Care, Enhanced Community Options, and Choices), which provide in-home assistance with such basic activities as getting dressed and ready for the day, and assistance in the bathroom — served an average of 1,180 seniors a month — helping these seniors to continue to live in their own homes with dignity and independence. Our Lanesboro kitchen prepared more than a quarter-million meals and our Meals on Wheels drivers traveled more than 220,000 miles throughout Berkshire County to deliver those meals. Meals on Wheels is a lifeline for frail homebound seniors — providing not only a hot, nutritious noon-time meal, but a wellness check as well. The typical senior served by our Home Care and Meals on Wheels programs is between 75 and 90 years old, female, widowed, living alone, and on a fixed income. In many cases, the Elder Services staff member, volunteer, or Meals on Wheels driver, may be the only face-to-face contact this senior has that day. These one-to-one connections are perhaps the most important of all, because they let home-bound Berkshire seniors know that they are not alone and they are not forgotten.
As a result of statewide 9C budget cuts this past October, we will be forced to limit the number of seniors we can serve monthly in our State Home Care program. Many other Elder Services programs, including Enhanced Community Options and Meals on Wheels will also be adversely affected. As we face these challenges, it is important to keep in mind that home and community-based services for seniors and individuals with disabilities are much more than a budget line item. The choice to receive one’s long-term-care services in the least restrictive setting appropriate to one’s needs is a basic civil right. We need to continue to advocate for meaningful choice regarding community-based long-term care services and an agenda that truly and unequivocally puts community choices and community options first — today and tomorrow.
Many thanks to our extraordinary staff and volunteers, including our Board of Directors and Advisory Council, who together are the heart and soul of this great agency. Although we serve more than 10,000 seniors, caregivers, and individuals with disabilities a year, we serve one person at a time, with care and compassion, thanks to your dedication and commitment. You are truly outstanding. You are without equal.
Elder Services of Berkshire County — promoting dignity and independence — today and everyday.
Robert P. Dean is Executive Director of Elder Services.
