April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
CATHOLIC CHARITIES
Agency assists Schenectady seniors
"Schenectady County is a service-rich county for seniors," said Deborah Damm O'Brien, executive director of Catholic Charities Senior Services in Schenectady. "We offer a comprehensive array of services."
These services include:
• the Senior Nutrition Program, which provides a hot lunch, classes and weekly shopping trips at four meal centers, as well as the Home Delivered Meals Program;
• Transportation Services, which provides transportation to medical appointments and senior dining locations;
• Dayhaven, a social adult day care which provides activities to seniors living with memory impairments; and
• Aging Services Information and Assistance, which provides insurance counseling, long term care planning and other assistance.
Catholic Charities Senior Services in Schenectady assists thousands of older adults each year, Mrs. O'Brien said; last year, the agency provided 36,000 rides and 152,000 meals.
One unique aspect of the agency's offerings is that they are personal: for example, the transportation program provides door-to-door service, so that when a driver picks up a client, the driver can check on whether everything is okay in a client's home.
If a driver picked up a regular client and found the client's house colder than normal or the client disoriented, Mrs. O'Brien said, the driver would alert a supervisor. The agency would then check to see if help is needed to pay heating bills or purchase medications.
The door-to-door aspect of the transportation program is particularly important for seniors living in this climate. Mrs. O'Brien pointed out that snow is a part of life in the Northeast, but seniors often worry about slipping and injuring themselves in icy weather.
Having assistance getting in and out of the house is often a great relief, she said.
Mrs. O'Brien said her agency is constantly looking at the services it provides to see that they are meeting the needs of their clients. One of the challenges is that seniors have a variety of needs.
"People are living longer," Mrs. O'Brien said. "The over-age-85 population is the fastest-growing population."
However, she added that age can have little relationship to the needs of a client: "There are 85-year-olds running marathons, and there are 67-year-olds in nursing homes."
Kathleen Conboy, administrative coordinator at Catholic Charities Senior Services in Schenectady, said some older adults feel embarrassed to be aging.
"There can be a stigma," she said. "People don't want to think about aging."
As the agency looks to the future, it is trying to anticipate the needs of the "baby boomer" generation.
"Baby boomers are used to running the show," Mrs. O'Brien said. "They might not want congregate meals. They may want choice and flexibility."
The needs of middle-income seniors are also a concern. Mrs. O'Brien noted that there is senior housing in the Albany Diocese for low-income seniors, and wealthy seniors can pay for senior housing - but middle-income seniors don't qualify for low-cost housing and can't afford the options of the wealthy.
Agencies providing services to seniors need to look at how to structure the system so that seniors living at all income levels are served, Mrs. O'Brien said.
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