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Emergency Preparedness Coordinator: User Guide

October 12, 2015

A disaster can strike anytime, anywhere. When it does, a poorly-managed response can put the safety and well-being of residents at risk and expose housing owners to unnecessary costs, problems and liabilities. Having the right plan in place before a disaster will help you manage an effective, coordinated response across staff, departments, partner agencies and sites.The Ready to Respond: Disaster Staffing Toolkit will help your organization prepare for and respond to a disaster. The Toolkit is based on the Incident Command System (ICS), a planning framework used by federal, state and local first responder agencies to help structure the command, control and coordination of emergency response. It includes guidance on staff roles and responsibilities and the disaster-related protocols and systems which will enable you to mount an effective emergency response.The Toolkit is designed to support three vital goals—building protection, resident engagement and business continuity. This will allow your organization to minimize building damage and ensure quick return to service; support the safety, preparedness and recovery of your residents, and maintain key business operations throughout a disaster.

Baby Boomers and Beyond: Facing Hunger After Fifty

July 1, 2015

Baby Boomers and Beyond: Facing Hunger after Fifty provides insight into the personal, economic, and health circumstances of adults age 50 and older -- referred to as older adults throughout this report -- who seek charitable food assistance through the Feeding America network. In addition, the report highlights the ways in which older adults and their household members cope with food insecurity and other challenges. Data in this report are the result of analyses of the Hunger in America 2014 dataset and are presented at the individual, respondent and household level. Individual-level results reflect responses about individual clients (defined below) age 50 and older. Respondent-level results reflect responses from clients age 50 and older who completed the Client Survey. Household-level results reflect the circumstances of client households that contain at least one member age 50 and older. In addition to discussion of the 50 and older group as a whole, the report also looks at other age ranges (50-64, 65-74, and 75+) where notable trends exist.

More Than a Meal: Pilot Research Study

March 2, 2015

The national Meals on Wheels network continues to face limited funding, rising costs, unprecedented demand and need and increasing for-profit competition. That is why Meals on Wheels America set out to compare the experience and health outcomes realized by older adults who receive three different levels of service: daily traditional meal delivery, once-weekly frozen delivery and individuals on a waiting list. This study, funded by AARP Foundation and conducted by researchers at Brown University, implemented a groundbreaking approach to investigating the impact of meal service delivery on homebound seniors receiving Meals on Wheels. The study's findings validate what we've all known for decades anecdotally through firsthand experience: that Meals on Wheels does in fact deliver so much more than just a meal.

Hunger and Nutrition: What's at Stake for Children, Families, and Older Adults

December 2, 2012

The needs of our bookend generations are acute. Nearly a fifth of our country's children (almost 16.7 million) live in households where they lack consistent access to enough nutritious food for a healthy life. About 4.5 million (one in 12) adults age 60 and older are now at risk of hunger or food insecure. Using an expanded measure, nearly 8.3 million (one in seven) older adults are, at times, anxious about whether they will have enough to eat. These disturbing trends cannot be ignored in today's America.Adequate nutrition helps children and youth concentrate in class, improves their memory and overall behavior, and leads to better health and fewer visits to the doctor. For older adults, access to good nutrition also improves memory, helps maintain healthy physical activity, and reduces the number of trips to the doctor. The benefits of good nutrition are clear. How can we ensure the most vulnerable among us are well nourished?In thousands of communities, houses of worship, food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters play key roles in providing food assistance to needy children, youth, older adults and families. They bring people of all ages together to help their neighbors during times of hardship and alleviate a painful source of anxiety: where the next meal is coming from. And, of course, a function of the federal government is to address hunger.Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is in dire financial straits. The prospects of revenue increases and budget cuts threaten the economic stability of nutrition assistance programs and other critical social services. While Americans hope for serious and thoughtful nonpartisan deliberations on how to solve our fiscal problems, many of us fear the economy will not improve any time soon. Meanwhile, millions of vulnerable people depend on strong federal nutrition programs to put food on the table and help make ends meet.To find out how Americans think we are doing to meet the nutritional needs of our younger and older family members, Generations United commissioned a nationwide survey conducted by Harris Interactive from September 24 to 26, 2012.

Home Alone: Family Caregivers Providing Complex Chronic Care

October 1, 2012

This study challenges the common perception of family caregiving as a set of personal care and household chores that most adults already do or can easily master. Family caregivers have traditionally provided assistance with bathing, dressing, eating, and household tasks such as shopping and managing finances. While these remain critically important to the well-being of care recipients, the role of family caregivers has dramatically expanded to include performing medical/nursing tasks of the kind and complexity once only provided in hospitals.To document this major shift, the AARP Public Policy Institute and the United Hospital Fund undertook the first nationally representative population-based online survey of 1,677 family caregivers to determine what medical/nursing tasks they perform. Both organizations contributed to this report with funding by The John A. Hartford Foundation.  A few highlights of the results include:Almost half (46%) of family caregivers performed medical/nursing tasks for care recipients with multiple chronic physical and cognitive conditionsThree out of four (78%) family caregivers who provided medical/nursing tasks were managing medications, including administering intravenous fluids and injectionsCaregivers found wound care very challenging, more than a third (38%) wanted more trainingMost family caregivers who provided help with medical/nursing tasks believed they were helping their family member avoid institutionalizationThis report reveals the complexity and difficulty of specific tasks, the lack of support and training family caregivers receive, and the effect on their quality of life. The findings highlight an urgent need for both individual and collective action. The report makes ten recommendations, including:A consensus-building body should revisit measures used to define what caregivers do.Accrediting and standard-setting organizations should strengthen their oversight of how well institutions meet family caregiver needs and require corrective steps to address deficiencies.Academic and government researchers should conduct further studies to understand medical/nursing tasks performed by different types of family caregivers and their needs for training and support.Click "Download" to access this resource.

Raising Expectations: A State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults, People With Physical Disabilities, and Family Caregivers

September 8, 2011

Ranks long-term services and supports systems for affordability and access, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and care, and family caregivers support. Explores contributing factors and roles of public policy and private-sector actions.

Housing America's Older Adults 2019

July 5, 2011

As both the number and share of older households in the United States increase to unprecedented levels, inequalities are becoming more evident. Within the 65-and-over age group, most recent income gains have gone to the highest earners, and the number of households with housing cost burdens has reached an all-time high. Ensuring that middle- and lower-income households in this age range have the means to live affordably and safely in their current homes or move to other suitable housing will be a growing challenge. Meanwhile, many households in the 50-64 year-old age group have not recovered from the Great Recession, leaving them with lower incomes and homeownership rates than their predecessors at similar ages. For the nearly 10 million households in this age group that are cost burdened, ensuring financial and housing security in retirement will be a struggle.Click "Download" to access this resource.

Kinship Care in New York: Keeping Families Together

March 1, 2011

This report compiles recommendations from professionals and caregivers who attended the June 2010 Albany summit and/or participated in the many preliminary meetings beginning in December 2008. The 130-plus summit participants included Kincare Coalition members, government representatives and experts from other states. The summit and this report were the culmination of a three-year Coalition effort, funded by the New York Life Foundation and AARP Foundation and supported by AARP New York, aimed at "drilling down" into the realities of kinship family life and identifying tailored assistance to support the unique needs of these families.

Green Cities: How Urban Sustainability Efforts Can and Must Drive America's Climate Change Policies

May 9, 2009

Documents the progress cities have made in green building, green workforce development, and transit-oriented development. Suggests policies and partnerships with federal government, business, labor, and philanthropy to achieve an equitable green economy.