President and CEO of InterFaith Works explains how the nonprofit helps elders stay socially connected
By Mary Beth Roach
Q: What is the purpose or the mission of the agency?
A: InterFaith Works affirms the dignity of each person and every faith tradition builds racial and religious equity and creates bridges of understanding among us.
Q: I wanted to focus on the agency’s programs that promote healthy aging. Can you explain these programs?
A: The Healthy Aging Center is dedicated to working on behalf of elders who may have become socially isolated or who are in situations where they don’t have access to the resources that this community offer for healthy aging. We’re not a medical-based organization in that sense of having medical people come into your home. We’re more focusing on helping older adults stay socially connected and age with dignity.
Q: Can you list what those programs are?
A: We started with a volunteer companionship and friendly-visit program for elders who were living in their own homes and desired to stay at home, but needed that little extra social and [help with] small tasks. It was a federal program started under the Kennedy administration.
The companions are elders who want to stay active as volunteers, and they receive a small stipend to help them to support their lives because they’re low-income people. This small stipend, because it’s in this federal program, does not affect their Social Security. The companions receive training every month. They do things like fall prevention, how to watch for dementia or how to watch if somebody’s being taken advantage of financially. Then they can report back to us if they see something and we can get some of the agencies in town that are professionals to lend a hand to people.
What we found in our nursing homes, here and across the nation, 65% of the elder residents don’t have a regular visitor. We started to do one-to-one visiting in area nursing homes. The minimum requirement was that they [visit] once a week. The clients don’t pay anything.
Q: Any other similar programs?
A: We have a respite program for family caregivers. We can have one of the senior companions come and visit your loved one. One of the things we realized during COVID-19 is that many elders’ children had set them up with a computer or a smartphone, but they didn’t know how to use it. So, when it was possible for people to start going into people’s homes with masks and all the safety factors, we started doing digital literacy training for the elders on how to use their devices. It has mushroomed into a digital inclusion program for elders. Now we’re working in a lot of the senior housing and in some of senior living facilities with volunteers. We’ve built a curriculum with the help of Spectrum. Spectrum also provided some grants where we were able to get tablets.
We were able to partner with the County of Onondaga Office for Aging and got a neighborhood navigator. The person is an employee of InterFaith Works and can find elders in the community who don’t know that there are services for them and get them connected.
Q: How about seniors who are immigrants?
A: A program that grew before COVID-19 started is the conversational English program for older adults. We want to think about it not only who needs services but also through racial and immigrant lenses. We saw that many older refugees have come to the U.S. and have been reunited with their younger family members, but often didn’t get the services that younger refugees get. Some of them were too old for jobs, but they were united with families and ended up doing a lot of childcare while the younger adults went out and started working. We started a conversational English program for older adults that also includes field trips around the community.
Q: How would somebody avail themselves with these services and or volunteer?
A: They can call our phone number, 315-449-3552. The director is Lori Klivak and her extension is 109.
Q: Are all of the programs you mentioned free of charge to the clients?
A: Yes, there is no charge for our services.
Q: How many clients does your Healthy Aging Center serve?
A: The Center for Healthy Aging served 900 people last year. We expect it will be a greater number by year end this year due to the expansion of programs.