The purpose of this assignment is to help you become more aware of the services for aging adults that are available in your community, and to encourage you to make direct contact with selected providers and consumers of these services. Of particular interest here is the recognition that basic services for all community residents are the backbone of what is needed by older adults as well.
Start with those basic elements of your community environment before going on to more specialized services designed solely for its older residents. Using this information, write a 5-8 page paper in which you:
Describe your community as to location, geography, size, transportation, recreational, economic, cultural, and demographic characteristics, including the break-down of various age groups in the population.
Conduct a survey of your community’s services, both general and specific to aging people. You may find it helpful to start with your town/city/county/local area Agency on Aging websites (information about how to access these can be found under “Readings and Resources” for this lesson). You may include any number of services in your survey. I suggest that you present information in table format to shorten the paper. For each service, give available information about eligibility requirements, fees, and type(s) of services provided. You may find it difficult to get some of the information you are looking for, and if so, this experience is important to describe in your paper, too (consider that the consumer probably has less skill that you do in searching, and will probably not find it either).
Conduct interviews with three people as follows:
Someone aged 65 and older
A health care professional
An administrator of a community service for older adults
Structure your interviews to obtain the following information:
For the older adult:
Does the person being interviewed know about the services you found on your survey?
Has he/she used any of these services?
Would he/she use or refuse services in the future?
What problems does he/she perceive with aging-related issues now or in the future?
Where would he/she go for help should he/she need it?
What are his/her hopes and fears for the future?
How well is the community responding to the needs of its elders?
What is needed that is not available?
Who should provide for these unmet needs?
What can older members of the community contribute to the community?
For provider and administrator:
What problems do they perceive with aging-related services now or in the future?
How well is the community responding to the needs of its elders?
What is needed that is not available?
Who should lead the effort to evaluate needs and services for older adults?
Who should plan for meeting these needs?
Who should pay for services to meets the needs of aging adults in the community?
Comment on whether these responses fit with your impressions of how U.S. policy is currently written.
Based on your assessment findings, summarize the positive and negative aspects of the quality of life for older adults who live in your community.
