Foulkeways at Gwynedd
Gwynedd, Pennsylvania

For Foulkeways, Senior Scholars began in September 2011 as a way to broaden their commitment to educating future Gerontological Nurses.

University students provided resident care through their clinical affiliations but one Nursing Home Resident wanted to do more than be cared for. Dr. Gus Beck, a Pulmonologist living in the Nursing Home wanted to educate the students about pulmonary anatomy and physiology and so he created a curriculum and began teaching. Dr. Beck became a favorite professor among the students, and thus was born “Senior Scholars.”

The program grew as Bunny Browning, a Registered Nurse (RN) also living in our Nursing Home, joined and began enlightening the students on how she survived as a RN in a Japanese prison camp in World War II. She told the future nurses how she used her nursing skills to survive in captivity.

The Health Services team, who had been conducting orientation for new students, recruited Bob Neff living in a residential apartment and later in Personal Care to provide the student tours and an orientation to living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community.

Residents spread the word of the “Senior Scholar” program and Resident volunteers began offering their knowledge and experience. The next thing they knew they had themselves a faculty!

Topics taught by residents include: Living with Macular Degeneration; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Living with MS; Total Knee Replacement; Hearing loss; Coping with Loss; 90 & living alone with multiple health issues; Living with Arthritis; and Developing positive attitudes towards aging & illness.

Currently there are 16 Senior Scholars who provide lectures, in addition to many Residents who offer clinical 1:1 education for students such as how to perform a sanitary urinary catherization.

The Residents are engaged, relevant and have purpose in molding the next generation of professionals, individuals who will be giving and leading Resident focused care initiatives.

Through clinical education of interdisciplinary students, the Senior Scholars Program is dispelling all aging myths as the students learn from listening to older adults. The program has provided over 27,000 hours of student education since it began official recordkeeping in 2011.

Through Senior Scholars, students experience sage wisdom in a way they may never experience in their own lives. Wisdom is shared in real life, not from a u-tube video but from an older adult living in any care setting within the retirement community who may be hard of hearing, wearing glasses, entering the class room with a walker and grinning when the student asks a question about the topic that has been asked many times before and is answered as though it had never been asked before, “Now that is a really good question!”

Many Health Care & Rehab
Many, Louisiana

Many Healthcare and Rehab (MHC) is a small community of 101 residents in rural NW Louisiana. They are pet-friendly, supporting residents’ ability to bring their cats and dogs to live with them, evident by the 9 dogs and 1 cat who currently live there and who are joined by pets who come to work with staff members on a regular basis.

The “Animal House Club” began when two of the resident Elders, Ms. Valerie Gadd and Ms. Wanda Williams, decided to help shelter animals by making and donating throw pads for them. After several years, they decided they would like to give other animal lovers a chance to help, too.

Through their common goal, to “Love, care for and protect our furry friends to the best of our ability”, residents and staff from Many Health Care & Rehab joined together with the staff from Sabine Humane Society Shelter as well as family and friends from the community.

• The pride of the Animal House Club is the TLC Program, in which club members serve as “foster moms and dads” for kittens and puppies who have no momma. But each day, club members are busy doing so much more, including:
• Repurposing donated towels, sweaters and blankets into them into warm mats for the shelter dogs and cats
• Promote sponsoring, fostering or adopting of shelter animals (especially senior animals) by sharing information in the Many Healthcare Newsletter.
• The establishment and support through raffles of a “Pet Fund” to help provide food and toys for MHC pets as well as shelter pets.
• Serving as “Critter sitters” for needy animals

Feedback from the community and Elder families confirms the success of the Animal House Club. Through the club, Elder members have an opportunity to do something they love, share their knowledge and gain satisfaction knowing that they are doing something that provides true meaning and purpose for themselves, is making a difference and is bringing joy to others!

Saskatoon, SK
We Day/Free the Children Committee

The We Day/Free the Children Committee is made up of Elders (both those living at Sherbrooke or participating in the Community Day Program), children and staff of iGen, an intergenerational grade 6 classroom, and Sherbrooke staff and volunteers. Based on the belief youth can change the world, and that bringing together youth and Elders to share, learn, mentor, and give/receive care could provide opportunities to give back to others both locally and globally.

It began in 2014 when Saskatoon Public Schools and Sherbrooke Community Centre created a partnership to begin a program for grade 6 students and Elders calls “iGen,” short for intergenerational. Elders played a vital role in the development of the program by serving as mentors to the students. They shared and learned from past projects such as the creation of a Community Garden which had been accomplished through grant-funding and partnership with organizations; work done as community volunteers in which they supported events such as The Saskatoon Fringe Festival and World Softball Tournament; and participation in the City of Saskatoon’s public campaign for recycling in order to create a greener community.

Elders play an important role in selecting charities to support, planning fundraising activities, discussing the social issues the charities are addressing with the students and offering encouragement and guidance throughout fundraising and engagement in the selected projects.

The program provides the Elders with a sense of purpose, creating opportunities for them to see not only the tangible results of their efforts in terms of goods and funds raised for community organizations, but also to see the growth in the students throughout the year. The Elders feel joy as they see these young students grow and mature through their actions and gain confidence in their abilities.

Everyone within the program believes they can change the world and that is a very powerful benefit. The committee has seen this happen through the program and beyond. In fact, some Elders have taken the skills learned in the program (charity work, community involvement and activism), and with a new level of confidence, have become involved in municipal affairs to make the community a better place.

Though originally grounded on the belief of the “We Day” program that youth could change the world, the committee has shown that it is not just the students who learn to be world-changers, it is the Elders as well.