Wednesday, February 6, 2008

What I did all day as a Gerontologist

The appeal of gerontology is that there are so many possibilities for job opportunities. From working as a recreational therapist in a nursing home to running a senior center for active older adults. From developing policy in the field of aging to counseling family caregivers. After I graduated with my Masters in Gerontology in 1981, I went to work for Catholic Charities, where I had a number of positions over my 25 years of service to the elders of the Archdiocese of New York.

My first job was Coordinator of the Recreation Program for the Elderly. Since I was going through serious personal issues at the time – my grandmother had Alzheimers and my Mom, her principal caregiver, was dying of cancer – I decided that I wanted a “fun” job, without life and death components. Recreation seemed just right. I worked with 100 New York City parish clubs. With a grant from NYC’s Department for the Aging, we provided the clubs with money for trips, hired crafts and exercise teachers to lead enrichment classes, and did site visits to make suggestions for enhanced programming. Most of the clubs were weekly coffee, cake and Bingo gatherings, so adding a gifted teacher to teach painting was a real plus.

One of the projects I designed during my tenure as recreation coordinator was “Celebrating Life” which was funded by a local bank. We trained our instructors to translate life history into crafts projects. I loved the process. Visiting the different parish groups and listening to their stories. Some were quite poignant - the first meeting of a Bronx woman with her sister from Ireland; a painful hurt from long ago that still needed to be healed; a woman who had experienced a vision. It was very inspiring.

“Celebrating Life” was a great success and we held an exhibit at the Catholic Center to highlight the finished parish projects. A Manhattan parish club collaborated on a montage of their memories. A Bronx parish did a felt “painting” of their church, with their taped memories. A Harlem parish decorated the parish hall with mementos of the past. A Staten Island club held a fashion show, featuring a wedding gown from fifty years before. I can still see the seniors explaining their works of art to teenagers from Cathedral H.S., who attended the event.

My job responsibilities included: writing funding proposals, supervising an assistant, scheduling the teachers, writing reports, etc. But the best part of this job was getting out to the different parishes and seeing the clubs in action. This refreshed and re-energized me when I was feeling frustrated, overwhelmed or tired of the paper work. The Archdiocese is so diverse: it runs the gamut from poor to wealthy parishes, with so many different races and ethnic groups. One of my challenges was to integrate the Spanish speaking seniors with the Irish and German English speaking seniors in a Bronx parish. A wonderful priest there celebrated a bi-lingual Mass at a long table with all the seniors sitting around the table and participating.

To bring the different cultures together, we also held an annual picnic, usually hosted by the Staten Island clubs, so that they could intermingle and get to know each other. Unfortunately, at one picnic, a Bronx senior tripped over a tree root and broke both arms. My staff spent most of the time in the local Emergency Room. We also had an annual Christmas Brunch at Lindy’s Restaurant in the Empire State Building, provided by Cardinal Cooke’s boyhood friends, who owned a chain of restaurants. Do you think that putting that event together wasn’t hard work!

To be continued...

5 comments:

teresa_anawim2 said...

Recreation for our shut-ins is lacking around here. Table crafts is about it for some.
In some homes, it is even difficult to find a Eucharistic Minister to visit regularly..most want to do the hospitals,and hope a priest will visit the nursing homes for a mass.
(I really think they don;t want the responsibility of deciding who is mentally capable to receive..which rarely is such a necessary concern)
.
I have a great aunt in an Alzheimer's home and they have a councilor/aid for just about every 5 patients. Each moment of the day is structured and activities abound, with the purpose of keeping the mind and body active. A rare find for a facility.
You seem to have had a great concern for this need in our nursing homes. I wish there were more with that desire and concern.I appreciated your account of all the different elements you added...fashion show, funding from the community,and above all, participation of the seniors with the young people of the community.
Up until 2 years ago, I used to take my string ensemble to give concerts at the homes, and 2 brothers of middle school age regularly would go on weekends with their mother just to play for their new friends at the nursing home. After all...there they found an audience which applauded for them...even with mistakes!LOL
I look forward to the next post.

Maryellen said...

Wow Eleanor, what an interesting career-and what interesting job opportunities.

That must have been an extremely difficult time for the family when your Mom was dying of Cancer at the same time your grandmother had Alzheimers.

How that was handled and how it turned out would be another good subject for a post sometime in the future. I'd sure like to hear that story.

Your projects with Catholic Charities programs for the Elderly sounds like it would be very challenging, but you sure did a good job. You enriched so many lives with the programs you created. God has done a great work through your expertise.

This is all so interesting. More people could read about it if you sign up at the Ageless Project at
http://jenett.org/ageless/
Choose the decade in which you were born and enter your blog URL. Have you signed up yet at St.Blog's Parish?

Keep up the good work.

jugglingpaynes said...

Mom, this was a wonderful post, I know first hand how much time and effort you put into the recreation program. They all loved you.

I just wanted to point out that one of your LibraryThing Harry Potter books is listed in Ancient Greek! Do you want me to fix that?

Love T.

Inner Elder said...

Teresa, thank you for your comment and I agree with your assessment of why EM's may not want to visit nursing homes. It's also kind of disturbing for some of us to visit there - for me it was "so many people not the way they should be". And "Will that be me some day?" Ooooo Scary. It was great hearing about the facility where your great aunt is - how hopeful. Eleanor

Maryellen, As always you come up with great ideas to write about. Maybe I'll make you my agent. My daughter is coming over next week and I will have her help me sign on to the Ageless Project and St. Blog's. I have no patience for URL's. But I think you gave me a great suggestion. Eleanor

Thanks Tina. And thank you for the art work you contributed to our programs when you were teenager Tina.
And, Yes fix my Harry Potter thingy. Mom

Anonymous said...

My gosh, what a varied and rewarding career. It must have been extremely challenging and demanding in and of itself, along with the other family health concerns, but it just sounds so wonderful. Your enthusiasm must have played a big role in everything going so successfully.