Social Work in the Public Eye
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| Jeannie Krause-Taylor |
NASW member Jeannie Krause-Taylor created the agency Pathways
to Aging eight years ago to assist the elderly in late-life transitions,
according to an article on thetelegraph.com. The agency provides in-home,
geriatric-care management, counseling and coaching to people caring for their
retired parents.
“I always had a great relationship with my grandma and
great-grandma when I was young,” said Krause-Taylor, LCSW. “After working with
seniors through the health care industry for a number of years, I realized
there was a real need for someone who could help them and their children adjust
as their needs changed.”
In honor of Mother’s Day this past May, Pathways to Aging
hosted a series of seminars in the Alton, Ill., area. The presentations were
geared toward mother-daughter relationships and offered tips on stress
management, maintaining a mutually supportive relationship and developing
support systems.
Pathways is staffed by 18 people, mostly clinical social
workers, and was originally developed with seniors in mind, the article says.
It has now expanded to include the needs of adults who are taking care of their
parents in addition to their own families.
“I offer help with geriatric-care management,” Krause-Taylor
said. “Everything is done in the client’s home. We want to help seniors and
their adult caregivers — usually their children — to have a positive experience
and happy life.”
Those interested in Pathways services first undergo an in-home
assessment, which includes an observation of financial, legal, social, physical
and cognitive needs. Clients may also be offered a memory and depression
screening with a written recommendation for both short- and long-term goals.
“We look at how they function in their home; what kind of
formal support system they have, like family members and informal support, like
neighbors,” Krause-Taylor said. “We sit down with the senior, family members
and caregivers and discuss our assessment. We also look at long-term needs and
what may need to happen down the road.”
“At some point, they may want to consider some type of senior
housing,” she said, “and we can open the discussion on that subject, which is
often difficult for an adult child.”
Krause-Taylor says she bases many of her practices on her own
experience of taking care of her 83-year-old mother and 92-year-old father,
and she understands firsthand the difficulties that can arise from supporting
aging parents.
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| Jane Miller |
Umaya, a golden retriever, has star potential for helping the
clients of social worker
Jane Miller, who was recently honored as Social Worker of the
Year for Region 2 of the NASW Ohio Chapter. According to an article in Ohio’s
The Chronicle-Telegram, Miller noticed the positive effects her dog had on her
patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. Miller, an NASW member, became
certified in 2004 as a therapy and service animal behavioral consultant, and
began to train psychiatric service dogs to help her clients.
“The dogs know they’re doing the right thing,” Miller says in
the article. “I have clients who never left their house before getting their
service dogs. The dogs help them navigate the world.”
Miller says people are able to find new resources within themselves
once they are paired with an animal that is especially trained to help them.
A firm believer in the therapeutic power of dogs, Miller
published a book in 2010 called “Healing Companions: Ordinary Dogs and Their
Extraordinary Power to Transform Lives.” In it, she describes how dogs can
help anyone going through or overcoming a wide range of emotional illnesses,
such as anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD and depression.
Miller appeared on the PBS program “Health Visions: Animals as
Healers,” and has spoken at The Cleveland Clinic and the International
Association of Animal Behavioral Consultants Conference. She has also worked
with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs regarding the use of psychiatric
service dogs to assist soldiers returning home from war and suffering from
PTSD.
Dogs from all breeds are considered for training, Miller says,
but she prefers working with shelter dogs. During training, the animals are
reinforced with treats until the teaching becomes second nature.
Miller’s clients are paired with a dog that best suits their
needs and lifestyle.
Her book answers questions such as where to find a dog, how
the training process works, which breeds will work best, what the dogs are
trained to do and how to get financial assistance.
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| Forrest Hong |
The “sandwich generation,” according to NASW member Forrest
Hong, LCSW, represents the baby boomers who find themselves in a position where
they have to simultaneously take care of their children and elderly parents
while working full time.
In the online “Mind Your Body” video segment called “Build a
Better Boomer,” hosted by Stephanie Stephens, Hong discusses managing the care
of retired parents and the stress associated with the responsibilities of
raising children and caring for parents within the same household.
Hong, who is vice president of Your Care Manager in
California, says in the video that a good first step is to sit down with mom
and
dad and talk about options. Begin with planning, Hong says,
and get advice from elder-care professionals. Working full time and raising
young children can take up a lot of time, he says, and he suggests enlisting
the help of a home-care agency to save time and alleviate some of the strain of
finding help.
Hong advises looking into insurance options as a way to finance
home care, which he admits can get expensive. Re-mortgaging property, asking
friends and family to chip in and using savings are other ways to pay for care.
Home care is not part of any government entitlement program,
Hong says, so families who have planned ahead for long-term care insurance can
have at least a portion of it covered.
Those looking for an agency should keep in mind that they can
use the competition of other similar agencies as leverage to negotiate better
rates, he says.
“There are thousands of agencies out there. … There is a
tremendous amount of competition among agencies,” Hong says. “The consumer is
at a benefit.”
The No. 1 thing is to make sure a health care professional
that comes into the home is bonded in order to safeguard against something
being taken or broken, he says.
Hong advises having a written, detailed list of
responsibilities for the person to perform while on duty – one that is mutually
agreed upon. A caregiver can perform a multitude of tasks, including bathing,
dressing and engaging the person in their care in social activities.
For more stories: socialworkersspeak.org/media
From July 2012 NASW News. © 2012 National
Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News
articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of
copyright and credit to the NASW News must appear on all copies
made. This permission does not apply to reproduction for advertising,
promotion, resale, or other commercial purposes.
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