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N A N A Y’s GRANDPARENT MATCHING

A Service-Learning Model

NANAY, Inc (National Alliance to Nurture the Aged and the Youth) is now accepting applications for its Grandparent Matching: Intergenerational and Companionship Program. The project consists of a six-month structured service-learning for youth (ages 16-24) who will be matched with an older person (60 years or older) based on common interests, needs, and geographic accessibility. This program encourages youth to recognize the special needs of seniors in their own communities and support the elderly, while also providing mentorship and promoting youth leadership. It integrates service experience with personal development and enables youth to reflect (i.e., think, talk, discuss and write) about their service-learning experience with the older adult, while promoting personal, social and intellectual growth and empowerment, as well as a sense of community caring and civic responsibility.

By pairing youth with the older person, youth will experience the opportunity to serve the elders while also enhancing their own lives, improving their own personal values, and benefiting from the knowledge, experience and friendship of the elderly. The knowledge gained from this experience can then be utilized to create or modify other community projects that will be useful to the younger and older generations.

Before they are formally introduced to their respective matches, all youth participants will attend a one-day orientation and overview on aging, communication skills, code of ethics and responsible behavior. Youth will make a commitment to provide companionship, escort and chore service for the matched senior at least once a week, before beginning an interactive session with the respective senior.

1. Chore is defined as performance of house or yard tasks including such jobs as seasonal cleaning; essential errands; yard work; lifting and moving furniture, appliances or heavy objects; simple household repairs that do not require a permit or specialist; pest control and household maintenance including changing or installing locks, smoke detectors, fans and door knobs.
2. Companionship includes visiting for the purpose of relieving loneliness and providing social contact by casual conversation, assistance with reading, writing letters or entertaining games.
3. Escort means personally accompanying the older person to or from the NANAY Center, medical appointments, shopping, movies, shows, games and other places of entertainment.
4. Living assistance means visiting and providing needed services and companionship when the older person gets sick or becomes disabled and frail.

Each session will consist of a personal interview and discussion of specific topics that deal with the various issues and stages of life, from birth to old age. During these sessions, the older person will share past experiences, culture, personal values, history, heritage, and life lessons with youth. The Grandparent Matching Program Diary contains a set of questions for each session that pertains to specific topics or specific stages in the senior person’s life. Prior to each session, youth will write down his/her own answers to each set of questions, which he will later compare with the senior’s personal answers to the same questions. At the end of each session, youth will summarize details of the interaction, together with their personal impressions, reactions, chores completed and lessons learned from the older person. A service coordinator or counselor will be available to help or advise the matched youth and older person throughout the duration of the program. Through these sessions, youth will learn about interpersonal relationship, enhance their power of observation, develop rapport with the older person, improve their communication skills (both verbal and written), and increase their knowledge about aging, culture and various facets of life, while also having the satisfaction of providing community service to the elders.

All participating youth will have a regular meeting with the Project Director and Project Senior Staff at the end of each month to share experiences and discuss things that they have done, as well as lessons they have learned from interacting with their matched elders. Each monthly conference will begin with a one-hour panel discussion about the relevance of the previously assigned specific topics to the individual, to the community and to society in general. Youth participants will then be divided into small groups of 5 or 6 (which will serve as their assigned core group for the duration of the program). After each panel discussion, members of the core group, with the help of a facilitator, will share, discuss and analyze their notes, and form concepts about various aspects of life. Following the discussion, all groups will reconvene to report their final analysis, and suggest potential solutions to problems impacting youth and aging that may have been identified during the discussion.

Participating youth will be reimbursed for all expenses incurred in the program, with a maximum limit of $100/month, including the transportation cost of $0.30/mile traveled with the older person. Youth must submit receipts and explanation of expense to be reimbursed. Towards the end of the 6-month program, each core group will prepare a summary of the experiences of their members, who will then propose one community project that they can undertake as a group to address one of the social issues that they have identified during the program. If funds are available, worthwhile projects will be supported based on their potential to produce positive and lasting results for youth and the community, and will be undertaken by members of the core group that originated the idea. At the end of the program, youth will bring their matched senior to a "formal reception" for all participants and their respective families. Youth participants who have completed at least 30 interactions with the older person during the 6 months’ duration of the program will receive an "Ambassador of Goodwill - Community Service Award", specifying the total number of community service hours given by participant. Outgoing youth participants will also be invited to the service-learning program orientation scheduled on the next quarter of the year, to serve as mentors to the incoming youth participants.

For more information, please call NANAY- The Asian Pacific American Center at (305) 981-3232 or send e-mail inquiry to: joybruce@aol.com.

This program is funded by grants from Alliance for Aging, Department of Elder Affairs and Miami-Dade County Alliance for Human Services