Photo by Steven Fallitico
If Office For the Aging staff thought the word caregiver was a buzzword before now, it has grown in even more prominence now that the National Family Care standards have gone into effect.
That means “all caregivers need assessment in addition to the care receivers,” OFA Director Diana Fox said Monday, one day after the standards took hold.
She gave a review of how that’s going and what it looks like during the Human Services meeting.
“So we took on the position as part-time and full-time in order to be able to pick up that additional. We’re not sure how many additional people we’re having. But we do say caregiving is a huge part of what we do. In terms of the demographics that we serve, a lot of folks in our community are right in the middle of their caring for children, caring for older adults, and finding resources and getting support is just a big part of what we do for them.
“We also do a lot of services directly for people who have the need for care, whether it's someone who has dementia or Alzheimer's and those types of things. We have a grant that helps services for those groups and education and direct services for respite,” she said.
County Legislator Gordon Dibble asked for a definition of caregiver. Fox said it’s someone who does something for another person, whether it’s giving your mother her daily medications, or also helping her dress for the day and cooking her meals, driving a loved one to doctor appointments, cleaning the house, or performing day-to-day care for someone with extensive emotional and physical needs.
These new standards now mean performing an assessment on each caregiver, no matter what he or she does for the other person, as a check-in to see how that person is doing, Fox said. Because caregivers can often get so busy and caught up in providing for the needs of someone else, they may neglect taking care of themselves, and it takes a toll on their own well-being, she said.
As if on cue, the OFA is hosting a Shaping the Future of Aging Services public hearing this week to obtain input and better understand “what matters most to you” in terms of agency services and what the community needs to support aging residents effectively.
That hearing begins at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the office, 2 Bank St., Batavia. That will be followed by a program, You are the Help Until Help Arrives, that will provide participants with skills for what to do during moments of crisis to help save someone’s life.
As the agency approaches its 50th year, the clock is ticking louder for everyone, and Fox has been reminding folks that Baby Boomers will be hitting 65 by the year 2030. That means potential health issues and service needs for seniors will be at an all-time high, she said.
Older folks aren’t going anywhere, though, as they are taxpayers, volunteers, consumers, home-buyers, and — as county Legislator Gary Maha added — voters. They will have needs, requests, and voices and be a large chunk of the community to be factored in for most everything.
“We want to keep older adults in our community because they are taxpayers, they are volunteers, they have a lot of value in our community. So we don't want to lose them to another community because we don't have enough for them,” Fox said.
In her annual report, Fox listed OFA’s priority needs, which included:
Sustainable funding to maintain capacity to serve the influx of aging baby boomers. Without such funding, her staff will not be able to keep up with demand for information and assistance, caregiver support, community-based services, or long-term planning, Fox said. She has requested an increase of $50,000 for 2024, which would take her annual budget from $1,421,578 to $1,472,458.
Overall support to provide information and assistance to help constituents manage the complicated health insurance system and rising health care costs resulting from increased premiums, prescription costs, and the onset of chronic health conditions as they age. Office for the Aging’s wellness and recreation programs, efforts to address social isolation challenges, and services that include a review of health insurance options and eligibility for financial and in-home services programs all contribute to overall health and financial wellness, keeping out-of-pocket costs contained.
Full spectrum continuum of care — meaning independent, supportive, assisted and/or assisted and skilled — and middle-income senior-specific housing options.
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“We have begun to identify the growing needs related to opioid use. Much of the impact is related to the need for grandparents to raise their grandchildren and the impact on the often unreported financial exploitation and even thievery of older adults by their children/grandchildren to support their addiction,” she said. “We attend the Opioid Task Force and are working with GCASA, DSS, and other providers to identify local need and determine potential strategies to help support older adults in the process. We also participate in the Enhanced Multi-disciplinary Team (E-DMT) that addresses elder abuse and financial exploitation.”
New York State is seeing a bump in older adults that will continue to increase over the next decade, she said, with a 30 percent increase from the current senior population, according to a recent report from the Fiscal Policy Institute.
And perhaps not surprisingly, one of the most significant trends happening amongst older adults is the desire to remain at home and therefore receive services in the home, which is why locally and statewide, there has been a shortage of home health aides, Fox and state OFA officials have said.
How has that shifted the offerings for folks?
“Doing things like modifications of homes where we can, if we can keep somebody in their home is a huge cost saving, as opposed to putting them into a higher level of care. But we also do a lot of things like housekeeping, incontinence supplies, and laundry service, which really talks about the needs for someone being able to remain independent,” Fox said. “So through some of that unmet needs funding that came through the state, we ended up with a large portion of that, just because my predecessor did a really great job of keeping track of all the people we had. And I don't think … that's ultimately going to go away simply because those people are waiting for home health care. And while they're waiting, sometimes they're going to a higher level of care. Sometimes they are, in fact, maybe they're moving away, and there just aren't enough home health aides to be able to go around. And that was before the pandemic, and I don't think that's going to change; that trend is still continuing to happen.”
Reservations for the public hearing and life-saving program are encouraged and can be made by calling 343-1611. Walk-ins are also welcome for both events.
