#15 The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging Community Response to COVID19
Older adults have continued to receive much needed services and many new ones during COVID19, with the help of Area Agencies on Aging. These agencies were started in the late 1960's as part of the Older Americans Act. Over the years, thanks to advocacy, more funding has come available to add services like counseling, vision support and much more to a program that originally focused on food and transportation. During COVID19, even more support has been provided by these agencies and their community partners. Mr. Jody Barker, Director of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging shares many of the ways this region stepped up.
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer. Learn more at Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
Transcript:
Cynthia: This is Aging with Altitude, welcome to all. This podcast is brought to you by the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government's Agency on Aging. We strive to provide answers, assistance, and advocacy for our elders. Thank you for joining us today. Our topic today is COVID-19 Now. I am your host, Cynthia Margiotta, a geriatric social worker and volunteer with the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government's Area Agency on Aging. With me today is Jody Barker.
Jody Barker: Thank you, Cynthia.
Cynthia: Thank you for coming. A little bit about Jody... Jody is the director of the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging, which serves three counties: El Paso County, Park County, and Teller County in Colorado. He has served in many roles in his twenty-two-plus years in senior service organizations in Colorado. Among those roles have been editor of the Life After 50 newspaper, the director of operations for a home care agency, Central Colorado Regional Director of the Alzheimer's Association, and director of the Colorado Springs Senior Center. Jody's greatest joy is matching services with seniors and their families or enabling staff and services to do so. Jody has served on various boards and commissions over the years and currently is on the Colorado Commission on Aging, appointed by Governor Hickenlooper. I'm impressed!
Jody Barker: Thank you, Cynthia.
Cynthia: Well, thank you, Jody! I have known you through several of those organizations, all are so great.
Q: So, let's get started with our first question about COVID if you don't mind? Jody, how are you at the Area Agency on Aging? How are you still meeting the needs of our community?
Jody Barker:
A: Well thank you, Cynthia, it is a pleasure to be with you today. When the governor's order began in early March, we knew that we would have to continue operating even if we had to close our doors. March 17th, St Patrick's Day, as a matter of fact, we packed up what we needed to serve our community. That included telephones and paperwork and our computers and we began to work remotely. So, even a sense March, even with our doors closed to the physical building, we are still 100% operational. We have even added services that I'd like to share with you later. The exciting thing is that our staff has taken this as a really exciting challenge. We continue to answer all phone calls, we're reaching out to our clients, we're reaching out to past clients, we are reaching out to our community to continue to serve them every day.
Cynthia: It's amazing how much you're doing and I can't wait to talk about that. As the emergency orders have changed we are seeing changing guidelines. As of today which is June 3rd, 2020, in case you're listening to this a little bit further down the road, we are at the Safer at Home stage or in the Vast Great Outdoors.
Q: What does that mean?
Jody Barker:
A: There's a lot of interesting thoughts around the changes in the orders that have been provided by Governor Polis. Originally, as you know, we were in a Stay-at-Home order. It was necessary for all involved to really flatten that curve. This way, we could really understand more about the disease and how it was affecting our community. Of course, because covid affects upper respiratory issues, it has been very challenging for older adults, especially those with underlying health conditions. The Stay-at-Home order was crucial, to begin with. As those in leadership, especially those in the healthcare field, began to understand more about the disease in early May they changed the order to Safer-at-Home. This allowed us to have a little more movement, like maybe going to the grocery stores or getting out and about to pick up a restaurant order instead of sitting in a restaurant to eat. That was was crucial.
Now, with this most recent phase, The Vast Great Outdoors, it simply is an encouragement for people who are able to enjoy the outdoors. Here we are now, on the very front end of summer and this week has been more like summer than June! It feels more like July and August kind of weather. It is very hot! The great thing about this new phase is that it is an encouragement to people who are able to get out and go to their local parks with appropriate social distancing or maybe go for a walk in their neighborhood. There was concern earlier on about even just stepping outside your home. Now, people are encouraged to open those windows and get some fresh air and to lessen the social isolation that was so important early on. Now, we want to encourage people who can, to get out there. There are actually a couple of exciting changes with our providers who are helping to promote the new orders that we will touch on.
Cynthia: It is so important to get some fresh air and to get a little exercise, even if it's just walking around the block to take take the dog for a walk. I mean, I have a neighbor who takes his wheelchair and he goes and walks his dog. I think it's important to do that!
Jody Barker: Even in my neighborhood here in town when we are able to get out for a walk, we see so many people out walking their dogs or going to the park. It is people of all ages, you know? So it's really exciting to see people moving about! It's an interesting change from the last two months but when we think about what it truly means for older adults, it's crucial. This is because the older Americans Act, which is a major source of our funding to the AAA, was written in 1965 to reduce social isolation. That is the primary directive around our funding and our programming. Imagine what that's had to look like in the last two months with the Stay-at-Home and even the Safer-at-Home safer orders in place. People we have served in a variety of areas, whether that's senior center programs, transportation to doctor visits, transportations to church or classes at the Senior Center, lunches at the Senior Center, all of those had to change on a dime. All of that was intended to help protect the safety, health, and well-being of older adults, as well as the rest of the community. But, it's probably been most difficult on our older population because someone who lives at home, to begin with, and maybe looks forward to that three to five days lunchtime with their friends at the Senior Center, suddenly are being asked to stay at home. That can be extremely challenging to their health and mental well-being.
Cynthia: Yeah, absolutely! We could talk about that for hours, gotta get out gotta be involved as much as a person is able.
Jody Barker: Exactly! An interesting comment came to me a few weeks ago from one of our volunteers who said she was talking with some neighbors. One of her neighbors, who is an older adult, said, "you know, I feel useless because I'm used to volunteering and now, I'm not allowed to. I feel useless." And so, one of the things that our advisory committee is working on is actually not only volunteering for seniors but involving those seniors in that volunteer project. This is to give people a purpose and to give people activities and things to look forward to. I know what will touch on it here in a little bit, but there's so much going on to not just serve the seniors but incorporate the seniors into the process. We're all working on this together.
Cynthia: In a sense, that's serving them.
Jody Barker: Absolutely!
Cynthia: You know you've known me for a while and I'm a big advocate of volunteerism. I think it's a very important part of being part of the community. I think, you know, if you can when you retire don't go sit on a chair! It drives me crazy! If you can, go out and volunteer. If you can't go anywhere, find a way to volunteer from home. People can write notes or they can make phone calls. I can talk about it for hours...
Jody Barker: I think what we have to remember is that there are opportunities for outreach, not just to our older population but for those older adults to participate in that process. Maybe there's an assisted living or retirement community or a skilled nursing facility in your neighborhood. Call those places and say "I'd like to write someone a letter." You have no idea how much of a positive impact that person can make.
Because maybe you live at home but you might have three or four rooms to move about in. But someone right now, during this time, who lives in assisted living or a skilled nursing facility is being asked to stay in their room. Their meals are delivered to them, their activities are brought to them in the hallway, and they are being asked not to leave their room due to social distancing.
So even just taking the time to write a note to an older adult who lives in a community near you could make a world of difference. You don't have to ask permission, you don't have to be part of a larger group, to do that. You can pick up the phone, you can write that letter on your own, and it will be such a positive impact on the staff and on the residents.
Cynthia: Just the thought of me being in a room for a month... I'm an extrovert and I would have no hair because I pulled it all out. I absolutely think those are wonderful things we can do. I mean, we can even write a note to our neighbor. It doesn't have to be an official volunteer program.
Q: So tell me, what are some of the service delivery changes and supports that have been implemented that you have found interesting or effective or both?
Jody Barker:
A: That's a great question! As you might imagine, as we started hearing more about this virus and as it began to grow, even at the end of February, before we closed our physical building, before the Stay-at-Home orders came from the governor, some of our providers were already beginning to make plans and make changes to their service delivery. For example, one service provider who many of you will know is Silver Key Senior Services. They are the primary meal site provider for El Paso County. So, when you think of meal sites, you're thinking of Colorado Springs Senior Center, Fountain Valley Senior Center, and the Mountain Mennonite Church in Palmer Lake. Those places receive meals from Silver Key Senior Service's kitchens. They're hot and fresh meals that get delivered to people who come into a congregate site. These people meet up with their friends. They might come early for a class or stay late for a concert. That is their time to get together. As you might imagine, as soon as that Stay-at-Home order came into place in mid-March, that service had to stop.
So, what did Silver Key do? Silver Key immediately implemented appropriate social distancing. They increased their home-delivered meals. They increased their pantry of delivered meals instead of people coming in via transportation on a Silver Key bus, going to the pantry to do their own shopping, and then get back on the bus to go home. Silver Key tried to reduce that contact in their pantry. The pantry is big until you start putting 15 people with shopping carts in there. You know, it can get very crowded. It is shoulder to shoulder sometimes. To avoid this, what they started doing is packing up those pantry boxes and delivering those to their regular pantry clients.
That was one thing that they did, another thing that they did is they converted those congregate meal sites into what are called grab and go sites. For example, every Monday at the Colorado Springs Senior Center, the Silver Key Senior Services blue meal truck shows up. Instead of daily pickup, they prepare multiple meals and flash freeze them. This way, clients have all five meals for the week. Clients also have the opportunity to pick up fresh produce, dairy products, and things like that depending on what silver Key has on hand or what has been donated.
The Senior Center, normally provides classes such as educational classes, moving for better balance, tai chi, and more. Those are the kind of programs that we fund with the Older Americans Act and Older Colorado Act dollars that we administer. For obvious reasons, they had to close as they were not allowed to do congregate-type programs like those physical classes. So what they did was they started making calls of reassurance. The YMCA and the Colorado Springs Senior Center host over 16,000 members who are over 60 years of age. So, staff and volunteers began picking up the phone and calling in to check on their constituents. In addition to this, they created what they call a phone buddy program. Silver Key would invite someone to the program and have that person tell a little bit about themselves. They would then collect a little bit of information from an older adult who is interested. They then paired volunteers with participating older adults. So, think of it almost like a pen pal program, but by phone. The Senior Center has begun to host those pairings of phone buddies. Instead of Senior Center staff making those calls out daily, weekly, twice a week, those phone buddies can now be a lifeline to one another. All they have to do is pick up the phone to check in with each other, talk about common interests, and that kind of thing.
Silver Key is also providing some meals to people who do not have access to the Senior Center to pick up their own meals. They're delivering those meals on a case-by-case basis. The Fountain Valley Senior Center, as you know, is one of those congregate meal sites. They have now become and one of the Silver Key grab and go sites. Under the front of the building, they have set up a drive-through system. People line up in their cars and they can pick up the meal, they can pick up information, they can check-in and see how they're doing. One of the exciting things that I heard about, as it relates to Fountain Valley Senior Center, was that the city of Fountain did not layoff their staff, but sent a great many of them home to work remotely. This is because they did not have the same functions during that early stay-at-home process. Someone from the city government contacted the Fountain Valley Senior Center director, Jolene Hausman, and said what can we do? How can we help at this time? And they began with 20 city employees making those calls of reassurance. These employees were making over 100 calls a day. At first, it was only going to be a couple of weeks. Now, it is becoming an ongoing project because the seniors love it and staff from the city love it. Now, Jolene is talking about when things slow down, she would like to have a barbecue so the city employees can meet their phone buddy. The Senior Center is actually been talking about putting on something when it's safe to do so. So that those phone buddies can meet one another.
It's just been really neat to see those programs, even some of the smaller programs like Teller County Senior Coalition, based out of Woodland Park. This group has provided fresh fruits, vegetables, and even restaurant meals to their clients. This way clients are getting choices and variety, not just the same box of food every week. There is just a lot of neat things going on.
Unfortunately, some of our providers were limited. Providers who were contracted with us to provide certain services like transportation, suddenly found themselves not allowed to provide their service. So, they reached out in other ways like helping with telehealth or counseling services to make sure that people's needs are being met.
The irony in all of this is that it's changing almost daily, and definitely weekly, as our providers determine what needs must be met. Providers are determining what the outreach needs to look like as they plan for the future. Right now, we don't know what congregate programs are going to look like for the next few months or the long term. However, I would encourage people to take a look at the Colorado Springs Senior Center website at epymcappymca.org.
On the website, they can find the Colorado Springs Senior Center. They have already begun art classes using the online zoom system. So, zoom, if you're not familiar, is really more of a teleconferencing system where you can log in and see each other if you have a smartphone or a computer at home. Using the camera on your computer or smartphone, you can see one another and you can see your teacher. They began art classes using that online platform last week and they had something like 16 or 20 people from all over join that class. So, they are going to be doing a variety of both free and fee-based classes as they begin to look at what serving the community needs to look like with these new circumstances.
Cynthia:
Q: These are some mighty changes, yes?
Jody Barker:
A: Yes! These changes are distinctly different than what we traditionally thought of about senior services. I'm really excited that so many of our providers are looking at how they can continue to serve the needs of our community in a new way.
We have about half a dozen services that we provide directly out of our offices by our staff. These services include family caregiver support services. We are also going to be doing our own support groups via zoom and by electronic media. The exciting thing about this is that it means we can provide services to those who are caring for older adult family members, spouse, or parent. Instead of just the caregiver coming to a support group, he or she can invite family members from across the nation to join the caregiver in that support group. We now have the electronic technology in place to be able to do that. So, real silver linings are coming out of the challenges that we've faced due to COVID-19.
Cynthia: Yeah! You know national support groups would be an asset ongoing.
Jody Barker: Absolutely!
Cynthia:
Q: I like that idea! Will there be issue-specific support groups, or will they be more generalized?
Jody Barker:
A: I believe they're going to start somewhat general to begin with, but there is discussion around some more specific topics. So, if someone has a specific challenge or need in a certain area that person will be able to sign up for that specific support group. To expand on that, you know the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association is also doing something very similar. It may be nationwide, but they're beginning to do a lot more online support groups for that very reason. Again, it's one of those silver linings that has come out of the changes that we are having to make as we do our best to meet the needs of our constituents. Even though we can't be...
