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A few of the educational activities which are carried out through senior citizen clubs and centers include programs in

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Recreation is the most common denominator of senior citizen clubs. It is the biggest drawing card for the membership. For many, this opportunity to meet and talk with others and enjoy themselves constitutes the only daily or weekly bright spot in their lives. Some of the most common activities include:

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These activities are the backbone of most senior citizen programs. But the subcommittee has found that if senior citizen programs are limited to recreation alone, they are not meeting either the needs of the individual or the community.

A Volunteer Service Corps

Despite relatively small efforts to enlist the talents and energies of retired people in community volunteer service, senior citizens have already proven their potential value. The range of volunteer service is limited only by the imagination. Some of the more typical types of volunteer service provided by senior citizens include

Giving assistance to health drives and united crusade drives.
Assisting on community studies.

Assisting at centers for the blind.

Assisting in community beautification.

Making toys for needy children.

Rolling bandages.

Sewing clothes for welfare distribution.

Providing assistants in schools and youth programs.

Acting as church secretaries, handyman, or religious educators. Working in civic and political campaigns and social action groups.

Assisting local governmental units.

Working with the Red Cross and with State and local hospitals and clinics.

With a concentrated effort, possibly 3 to 4 million additional volunteers could be recruited for some type of community service during each year. The effect of this upon our community life would be very significant. Much more will have to be done in volunteer

recruitment, volunteer training, and volunteer supervision. Volunteer work through a senior citizen volunteer corps could make as great a contribution as the various civic and service organizations do.

In Los Angeles, senior citizens have a "Buddy System" where those living alone select a "buddy" with whom they check by phone each day to make sure that everything is all right. Others have worked out arrangements with schools and public transit companies for reduced rates. Much can be done through cooperative efforts to help the older person maintain his independence and meet the problems and challenges of aging through these programs and services.

Self-government is an essential part of a good senior citizen program, and participation in the program planning process is important. But the lack of well-trained paid staff to work with the membership in developing and carrying out their own programs is a serious limiting factor. Staffing often is borrowed on a temporary basis from recreation personnel, social group workers, educators, gerontologists, psychologists, from among senior citizens themselves, and other sources. While in most programs, the senior citizens themselves contribute something, almost none of the centers is self-supporting. They depend on public or voluntary subsidies and find themselves low in priority in the competition for scarce local tax or charity dollars. The mobility of retirees also makes local responsibility somewhat blurred especially in States like Florida, California, and Arizona.

FACILITIES

A shortage of suitable facilities has plagued the development of truly useful senior centers. Many mistakes have been made in planning. Too many programs are located in hand-me-down buildings with inadequate lighting, difficult to get to, and without the necessary equipment.

New facilities are costly. For example, the Los Angeles Recreation Department has allotted over $55,000 per building to add one room to each of the already existing park facilities, which are anything but elaborate. It is estimated that the Schenectady Center will cost $100,000 to rehabilitate. The Stockton, Calif., Center will cost about $90,000 plus land costs.

Despite limited financing and inadequate facilities, about 10 percent of the population over age 65 participate in generally good, comprehensive senior citizen programs. Considering that 33 percent of the men over age 65 are still employed, that 4 to 5 percent are in institutions, that about 15 percent are seriously limited in activity by chronic conditions, that many others have competing interests or family responsibilities, and that a small proportion of older persons prefer to avoid other senior citizens even at age 80 or 85," the figure of ten percent participation assumes sizeable proportions.

Estimates presented to the subcommittee indicate that about one-third of the senior citizen population could be reached at any one time with an attractive, meaningful program. This requires a program as important to a man as earning a living at regular employment and to a woman as important as raising a family. Over the years a one-third participation would mean that as many as

11 The Minnesota Governor's Committee found that one-fourth of those over age 65 did not wish to associated with others in their own age group.

two-thirds of the older population might participate in the program at some time or other.

For example, the Association of Senior Citizens of Los Angeles County estimated that 150 senior citizens clubs with a total of more than 30,000 were affliated with it.

In New York City, the welfare department has developed a program of senior citizen day centers which includes some 25 day centers involving over 9,000 persons. This program is supported in part by State funds administered through the State department of education and in part by local governments and community groups who help supply the facilities. There is a local board for each center. In 1959, more than 98 different types of activities were recorded and over 225,000 lunches provided. More than 1,000 counseling interviews were given each month to help members with problems ranging from housing, finance, and health to those of a personal nature. A lack of funds, however, produced a waiting list of more than 70 community groups currently requesting similar programs, which cannot be provided.

THE INDIVIDUAL'S RESPONSIBILITY

Longer life, together with the increased period of free choice of activity which our senior citizens enjoy, is a positive gain of our industrial and scientific progress. Retirement from regular employment may come earlier for many, but the individual is responsible for transferring his energy to an active new life of community service and self-enrichment. The selection of activity will be his own; the time and place and circumstances will be determined by him. the resultant feeling of pride and satisfaction in important civic contribution will sustain his self-respect and status.

And

Useful activity in retirement must become a social expectation and an individual responsibility. Retirement should and will be viewed as an honorable period in which new kinds of contributions can be expected. Opportunity for leisure, recreation, and social enjoyment must be satisfied-but only as avocations. Recreation should be combined with meaningful service to the community and the society. These are the individual and social imperatives which accompany the freedoms of aging in American life. Leadership-intellectual and financial-is required to sow and nurture the environment in which this concept of aging and retirement may flourish.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Preparation for retirement should be encouraged.

Industry, unions, schools, social agencies, and other groups are encouraged to increase their efforts toward preventing many difficulties of old age, through greatly expanded programs of preretirement preparation. Such education and counseling should include consideration of the productive use of free time. In addition, the Federal Government should expand its preretirement preparation program, making it a standard personnel practice.

2. A major effort should be made to increase the number and improve the quality of multipurpose senior citizen programs.

The subcommittee believes that no activity is more adaptable to voluntary-local-State-Federal cooperation than an effective program

to utilize the talents and enrich the lives of America's senior citizens. It is this type of effort which strengthens the bonds of our uniquely American Federal system by involving all segments in the web of service.

A. The Federal Government, therefore, should join with States, localities, and nonprofit voluntary groups to stimulate and help finance multipurpose senior citizen centers with qualified staff.

A multipurpose senior center should include community service programs, educational opportunities, recreation programs and counseling services. It should avoid paternalism and promote independent decisionmaking for important activities. Ordinarily such a multipurpose center will be open at least 20 hours a week and will include paid, trained staff.

B. To upgrade the quality of senior citizen programs and to train the necessary leadership, research, demonstration, and training grants should be provided by the Federal Government, foundations, and national voluntary organizations.

To help insure that the quality and effectiveness of senior citizens programs are increased, grants should be made available to qualified public agencies or institutions for research, demonstration, and training projects concerned with senior citizen programs. These should include cooperative efforts and cooperative support by public and private agencies and groups. Private agencies, organizations, and foundations especially should increase their efforts in this area of experimentation, demonstration, and training.

C. Studies and experimental projects should be conducted to review capital needs for senior citizen activity centers and facilities.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare should undertake studies of construction needs and costs of senior citizen centers and facilities to determine the extent of need and the best means of filling the need. Research, experimentation, and limited demonstration efforts should be carried out in cooperation with local public and voluntary groups.

3. Senior citizens should be encouraged to participate in voluntary community service activities as part of a senior citizens' service corps.

Public and private agencies should provide points of entry and advice and should undertake necessary training programs for these volunteer efforts. Federal grants made available through the proposed senior citizens' service training program can be used to help finance the local training programs.

Agencies with large numbers of older clients, particularly the Social Security Administration and Public Welfare Departments, should develop special programs to encourage senior citizens to participate in voluntary community service. Persons applying for or receiving old age assistance or social security could receive information and encouragement through education and counseling. Such service will contribute to the national welfare and will enhance the individual's own dignity.

4. The subcommittee recommends that its proposals (as carried in its 1960 report) on education for aging as essential parts of a comprehensive plan concerning free time should be acted upon by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1961.

These are as follows:

Consideration should be given to financial support for a program designed to

1. Aid State commissions and other public agencies in developing public understanding of the problems of aging and the aged;

2. Assist in developing programs for the aging in departments of public instruction, libraries, and colleges and universities;

3. Provide facilities adequate for these programs-in terms of numbers, availability, and suitability to the needs and limitations of the older persons using them;

4. Aid the development of basic research in gerontology, especially in the application of present knowledge in geriatrics to the social problems rising out of the presence of larger numbers of older people in the population;

5. Give further opportunities for training workers with older people, e.g., through senior centers, institutes of gerontology, conferences, etc.; and

6. Assist the States, localities, and educational agencies to carry out research, demonstrations, and experimentations in education for aging.

To give systematic consideration to this suggested program, the U.S. Office of Education could help in preparing information and specific suggestions for its development and implementation.

5. More public health departments should be concerned about the problem of social isolation as it affects mental health.

The Surgeon General of the Public Health Service should work with State public health departments on the problem of the social isolate among the senior citizen population. Not discounting the importance or the satisfaction which can be derived from periods of isolation, public health personnel should seek ways to encourage those lonely, isolated, older individuals whose mental health is jeopardized by the lack of social and mental stimulation to once again reenter and become a part of community life.

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