Enhancing the Performance of Local Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs in Ohio: Chartbook

This is a state-level case-study of the performance of local Long-Term Care Ombudsman Programs in Ohio. In surveying all of the local program directors in Ohio, along with a group of key informants, we identify major strengths and challenges the program is likely to face in the future. Funding and staffing emerge as prominent issues, particularly in determining the longer-term educational and advocay roles these programs ideally fulfill

Peace Meal: A Senior Citizen\u27s Right to Food in East Central Illinois

This study provides a formative evaluation of the Older Americans Act (OAA) Senior Nutrition Program, Peace Meal. Peace Meal provides home delivered and congregate meals for older adults in 14 counties in east central Illinois. The East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging (ECIAAA) is a funding source for Peace Meal and advocates that the OAA Senior Nutrition Program help older adults have improved food security and reduced social isolation. Key informant interviews and focus groups provided personal stories of how people in the community access food, what dietary and nutritional elements affect their food choices and health, and how their participation in food assistance programs affects their socialization. Some main questions explore: To what extent do local seniors understand food security in their communities? To what extent and why do local seniors use food assistance programs to manage food security? Through this evaluation and analysis, this study gives feedback to Peace Meal and East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging to better recruit seniors to use the food service and improve current operations. Data collected showed local seniors’ preferences to use Peace Meal for the nutrients like vegetable servings or social benefits like weekly get-togethers at senior centers with friends for lunch. A lack of general awareness for food insecurity and understanding of the OAA Senior Nutrition Program suggests more time and resources for educational promotion by Peace Meal is essential

In Search of Personal Care

In addition to medical and bodily needs, personal(ized) care involves the biographical and social identity of the recipient. Care-work always requires some adaptation to individual preferences and responses. But typically this is either an implicit or a secondary feature of care. However, with chronic, cognitive illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, the very capacity for maintaining self (e.g., memory and language facility) is threatened, and so the extent to which care addresses the person qua person becomes especially significant: For the afflicted, personalized care is identity care. Our analysis is based on paid work and field research in “quasi-institutional” residential care settings for the elderly; such settings claim to support collaboration between formal (paid) and informal (family) care-givers. We find that, despite its sentimental folk meaning, there is no simple consensus regarding the meaning or practices of personal care. We first develop a conceptual and empirically grounded definition; we then discuss its diverse meanings for the various groups involved in paid elder care and reflect on their practical implications for the fulfillment of the ideal. Our research shows that obstacles to personal-as-identity care are not confined to large bureaucratic or medicalized institutions. Among the obstacles we find in residential care are instrumental definitions of care among paid workers and the public at large; a “familial” division of labor lacking special provision for such care; and emotional demands of the care, from which families seek relief. Even when those concerned do orient care to preserving identity, there is tension regarding whether to treat identity as object(ive) or as process.Note: This paper was originally published in 2001 as a working paper by the Center for Working Families, a project of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, which later became the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. A revised version of the paper was published in 2004 in the Journal of Aging Studies

In Search of Personal Care

In addition to medical and bodily needs, personal(ized) care involves the biographical and social identity of the recipient. Care-work always requires some adaptation to individual preferences and responses. But typically this is either an implicit or a secondary feature of care. However, with chronic, cognitive illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease, the very capacity for maintaining self (e.g., memory and language facility) is threatened, and so the extent to which care addresses the person qua person becomes especially significant: For the afflicted, personalized care is identity care. Our analysis is based on paid work and field research in “quasi-institutional” residential care settings for the elderly; such settings claim to support collaboration between formal (paid) and informal (family) care-givers. We find that, despite its sentimental folk meaning, there is no simple consensus regarding the meaning or practices of personal care. We first develop a conceptual and empirically grounded definition; we then discuss its diverse meanings for the various groups involved in paid elder care and reflect on their practical implications for the fulfillment of the ideal. Our research shows that obstacles to personal-as-identity care are not confined to large bureaucratic or medicalized institutions. Among the obstacles we find in residential care are instrumental definitions of care among paid workers and the public at large; a “familial” division of labor lacking special provision for such care; and emotional demands of the care, from which families seek relief. Even when those concerned do orient care to preserving identity, there is tension regarding whether to treat identity as object(ive) or as process.Note: This paper was originally published in 2001 as a working paper by the Center for Working Families, a project of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, which later became the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. A revised version of the paper was published in 2004 in the Journal of Aging Studies