The Caring Community 2007-2008 Annual Report

Daily Meals: 287 hot, nutritionally-balanced lunches served at our four sites Monday through Friday. This was the original program offered at TCC and will remain a lynchpin at our four facilities.

Education and Recreation Programs: 150 clients served per day. The Caring Community operates four Centers for older adults: Independence Plaza in Tribeca; Our Lady of Pompei and First Presbyterian churches in Greenwich Village; and Center on the Square on Washington Square. TCC offers a variety of classes at these four sites including foreign language study, découpage, dancing, and exercise. The Caring Community also offers intergenerational programs with Public School 41 and with the nursery school at First Presbyterian Church. At the present time 80 children from PS 41 participate in an intergenerational arts program with seniors at our center at First Presbyterian Church. Another program with students from the Church’s Nursery School is being reinvigorated. An intergenerational program with City-as-School High School matches high school students with seniors at our Center on the Square in need of computer instruction. We will continue such classes moving forward with greater attention to a curriculum design that facilitates documented outcomes.

Case Management Services: 625 clients a year. TCC’s 3.75 person social work staff assists clients in securing entitlements, e.g. Medicaid and Food Stamps. Social workers link clients to community medical and mental health programs while providing ongoing emotional support to clients, their families, and significant others. TCC has traditionally offered social services at its four centers, as well as through on-site and at-home visits with clients, families, and significant others. TCC also provides a part-time social worker under separate contract to Westbeth, a HUD-sponsored housing complex for artists.

We are in the midst of transferring case management for approximately 200 frail at-home clients to the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, which has received a contract from DFTA to provide these services to much of Manhattan. The transition of homebound clients from TCC and other centers to the New York Foundation will be completed by July 1, 2008. We will continue to provide case management to over 400 seniors partaking in our congregate meal program.

Legal Clinic: 60 clients a year. Volunteers of Legal Services (VOLS) provide on-site legal services monthly at Pompei Center. TCC’s social work staff also consults with VOLS by telephone for direction regarding other general client needs and refers clients for specific needs, e.g., advance directives.

Health and Wellness: 300 persons a year. The Caring Community collaborates to offer a variety of programs that promote health and wellness for its clients, for example: a collaboration with CVS Pharmacy provides health education around topics such as diabetes; Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center and pharmaceutical companies collaborate with TCC to hold an annual Health Fair. TCC is a participant in an annual Health Fair at First Presbyterian Church. In addition, TCC provides space for meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Weight Watchers that are primarily attended by persons over 60. The agency has just begun a WomenHeart support group. WomenHeart is a cardiovascular support program for women over 50. TCC also provides annual flu shots, monthly blood pressure screenings with volunteers from Saint Vincent’s Hospital and there is regular nutrition counseling offered at First Presbyterian Church. These wellness programs will be expanded and quantified under the pending DFTA model.

Meals on Wheels: 190 hot, nutritionally-balanced meals per day, six days per week and a chilled meal for Sunday. For over three decades TCC has delivered meals to homebound adults who are too ill or too frail to go out, or who are unable to shop or to prepare meals of their own. Many of these clients are former participants in our congregate meal program. This number has increased significantly during the past two years and we requested and received additional funding from the Department for the Aging (DFTA) and Citymeals for both weekdays and weekends for expansion of our Meals-on-Wheels program.

DFTA will release a proposal later this month seeking vendors to provide Meals on Wheels for older New Yorkers. While we are not certain, we expect a division of the city similar to the one being utilized for case management services. The Caring Community may collaborate with a vendor and/or a consortium of centers on this proposal, but will not be a principal contractor.

Repositioning TCC’s Services for the Homebound

TCC’s Board of Directors recognized the need for special services for at-home seniors, and partnered with several donors to develop special programs for the homebound including:

• Friendly Visitor Program: 42 clients a year. TCC reinvigorated its Friendly Visitor program and now has 42 volunteers from Morgan Stanley, New York University and individuals from contiguous neighborhoods paying weekly calls on our homebound elderly clients. TCC’s Friendly Visitor Program is funded through a grant from CityMeals.
• Escort and Shopping Services: 150 clients per year. TCC volunteers escort frail seniors to appointments and activities including visits to doctors, banks, grocery stores, clothing stores, hairdressers, museums, and friends’ apartments.
• Chair Exercise Program: 18 clients per year. This new initiative, a collaboration with New York University’s Physical Therapy program, matches doctoral level physical therapy students with TCC’s at-home population. The PT students design individualized chair exercise programs for our clients and meet with them weekly to put them through their paces. TCC will expand upon this initiative in 2008 through a complementary program where occupational therapists from Downstate Medical Center visit our homebound clients to conduct home safety assessments. These assessments will be followed up by necessary repairs performed by TCC’s Home Repair staff, or volunteers recruited from local trade unions. The new occupational therapy component is being funded by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.
• Telephone Classes:40 clients per year. TCC has been offering classes by telephone for the past two years. The classes were originally devised as academic, but client feedback caused us to rethink our offerings which are now more practical, e.g., legal issues, home safety and health topics, e.g., living with diabetes.
• Homebound Repair Services: 100 clients a year. A full-time handyman and part-time assistant perform home repairs, e.g. minor plastering of walls, cleaning windows and grab bar installation.
• Stipendiary Programs: 16 clients. Because of strong, long-standing relationships with the Isaac H. Tuttle Fund, the DeKay Foundation, Jarvie Commonweal Service and the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, TCC is able to offer income enhancement through stipends from these sources. Stipends assist our seniors in a variety of ways ranging from providing supplementary income on an ongoing basis, paying rent to prevent eviction and to purchase client appliances and supplies. TCC clients will receive approximately $85,000 in stipendiary funding this year through the efforts of our social work staff and the generosity of our stipendiary donors.
• Daily Money Management (DMM): 40 clients a year. Initiated in 2004, with a grant from the Isaac H. Tuttle Fund, a DMM Manager assists eligible clients by sorting and opening mail; writing checks for the clients’ signature; assisting with billing issues; making bank deposits or withdrawals; and compiling income tax information. Clients in need of this type of assistance are typically in their mid-80s, and may have vision loss or chronic illness. They must be cognitively intact enough to understand and voluntarily consent to participate. We have expanded this program through a new collaboration with the AARP Foundation that utilizes AARP members as volunteer money managers for local seniors.

With the transitioning of our homebound seniors by DFTA to the New York Foundation for Senior Services, The Caring Community is exploring new ways to continue offering these services to the homebound. For example, we have entered discussions with Village Care of New York (VCNY) to develop a fee for service program where we would offer biannual assessments by a social worker and access to the programs cited above to more affluent homebound seniors who may not be currently receiving services through DFTA. This program has potential for funding by donors such as the Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation that prefers to fund projects that can become self-sufficient.

Moving Forward in an Uncertain Environment

As we submit this proposal, The Caring Community is in the midst of planning for the changes being mandated by the Department for the Aging (DFTA). To position ourselves as a premiere senior center in the new DFTA configuration, TCC has:

1. Created new programs designed to bring in 60+ baby boomers to TCC. During the past six months we have offered a Meet the Authors series featuring Thomas Mallon, Brian Kellow and Philip Cioffari; we are also partnering with the Marilyn Horne Foundation that will offer two on-site concerts at 20 Washington Square North as well as tickets to Foundation-sponsored concerts at external sites.
2. Started to discuss the development and implementation of surveys to our seniors in order to determine their needs through an expanded senior center model.
3. Initiated meetings with Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center (SVCMC) to develop formal wellness programs at our four sites. SVCMC was an original affiliate partner of TCC and currently provides blood pressure screenings and other health-related services for us. Our goal is to develop programs that will have the measurable outcomes DFTA will seek in its new RFP.
4. Continued meetings with New York University to explore additional partnership opportunities. The Starr Foundation has funded our successful Chair Exercise Program. Other partnership opportunities under discussion include:

• Food donations from Aramark, NYU’s catering service that will allow TCC to offer more food choices in its daily congregate meal program.
• A partnership that will allow TCC seniors free access to NYU programs and performances.
• A partnership with the Steinhardt School of Education to assist TCC in developing and evaluating health and general education programs to keep us in compliance with the new DFTA senior center vision. A portion of the funding requested from Starr will support this partnership.