Community seeks optimal life for those over 60

Tuesday, May 6, 2014, 12:00 pm

What does it mean for a senior citizen to live an optimal life?

The answer to that question is at the heart of a new initiative focused on ensuring Midland’s growing senior population has a healthy, positive experience as it ages.

The Legacy Center for Community Success and Senior Services have teamed up to create a list of 32 senior assets that promote optimal living.

There are 18 external assets that measure support, empowerment, expectations and constructive uses of time. There are 14 internal assets that focus on lifelong learning, positive values, social competencies and positive outlooks.

The concept is that as seniors check off more assets that apply to their life, they will have a more fulfilled and healthy life moving forward.

The idea is built around a similarly designed set of youth assets that has been introduced to the Midland community and used to fund necessary programs and improve the lives of area children.

Alan Brown, executive director of Senior Services, saw the success of the youth assets in changing the lives of children, and wondered if the same concept could be applied to seniors. He worked with the Legacy Center to secure a grant for the project, which is now moving into an initial survey stage.

The surveying will begin on Wednesday with the help of volunteers across the county who interact with seniors. A link to the asset list and an online version of the survey are available by visiting www.seniorservicesmidland.org and clicking on “Senior Assets” on the left menu bar.

Brown said addressing the needs of seniors is going to be critical as that population grows in Midland in the next five years.

“We are committed to the notion that no matter where a senior is in their life — no matter how old they are, what disabilities they may have — that they should have both the quality of life and optimum ability to live to their own enjoyment, satisfaction and fulfillment,” Brown said. “Whether in an independent setting, a nursing home or assisted living, we want to identify those assets that will help you thrive.”

Dick Dolinski, founder and president emeritus of The Legacy Center, said communities are stronger when seniors have fulfilled lives.

“Communities that have healthy, active and fulfilled seniors are very successful communities,” Dolinski said. “They have vibrancy, they have life, they have energy, they have very positive outcomes for the entire community. It’s a growing demographic and it’s very important that they are served with the right kinds of interventions.”

The list of 32 senior assets was developed by a committee with representatives from faith-based organizations, the health care field, Senior Services, law enforcement and more.

Pam Singer and Karen Somers worked as research associates with the Legacy Center to develop the assets list. Singer said they came away with a “really fantastic tool” that can be used by individuals to assess their needs and used by the community as a whole to assess its programming.

“Say you have a parent or grandparent who is over 60 years old,” Singer said. “They can look at this list of senior assets for optimal living and identify for themselves what they’re strong in — do they have family support, do they feel supported by their community, do they have learning opportunities in their life? They can look at each asset and identify what they have and what they might be lacking and they can use it as a tool to say, ‘I need a creative activity in my life,’ or ‘I don’t have a lot of peers and I’m lonely a lot. What could I do to increase that?’”

It can be used by the community to tailor programs to fill in areas that might be lacking, whether it be contact with neighbors, involvement in the arts or other areas.

“Now we’re at the point where we want to go out to the community and survey the community,” Singer said.

Starting Wednesday, a focus group of about 120 people will survey seniors age 60 and older in the community in the weeks ahead.

The surveys will be available through Senior Services, civic organizations, senior housing locations and elsewhere to try to capture a wide demographic within the age group, because that will provide a good picture of what assets seniors have right now, Singer said.

“The great thing about assets are there are thousands of ways to help seniors gain these assets,” she said. “They can be done in all sorts of creative ways. We’re just giving a tool that identifies the need, and it’s giving the community the opportunity to rally around the need and create their own solutions to it.”

Jennifer Heronema, president and CEO of the Legacy Center, said community services might be able to be tweaked to better address needs based on the data.

“This is really going to make the services out there today stronger, with a common purpose,” Heronema said. “They’re all good programs serving a good need, but it’ll really streamline everything and allow us to move forward appropriately.”

Singer said focusing the community on specific needs is good for everybody.

“When a community works together and collaborates in partnerships, it can really make a bigger difference,” Singer said. “The real proof in the pudding over time will be to resurvey and see where we’ve grown.”

Dolinski said success in addressing youth needs in the community has been spectacular, and they hope for similar results for seniors. He said focusing on youth assets has helped reduce criminal activity by adolescents by 50 percent, while re-offense rates are down more than 70 percent. He said Midland County Probate Judge Dorene S. Allen has saved her division more than $3 million during the past six years and cut its case load dramatically by bringing the assets program to Midland.

The senior assets model is being developed here, rather than brought here. If it works, it could be shared with other communities.

“This model, if we can develop it well here, can become a statewide model,” Dolinski said.

What the whole senior asset initiative comes down to is better serving the needs of a growing population.

“It’s important to know what it is in a person’s life that will help them live optimally, whether it’s support that can come from a community or family, or internal traits,” Dolinski said.

Sean Proctor/Midland Daily News