>
Stories
Atlanta, Milwaukee and Charlotte among Communities that Operate Programs
Senior academies are programs that teach older people how to effect change in their communities through greater civic involvement. Senior academy programs in these three communities are described:
- Greater Atlanta region, Ga.
- Milwaukee County, Wis.
- Mecklenburg County, N.C.
Each of the three programs is unique. One, for example, requires participants to serve as community volunteers, while another approaches academy graduates for specific actions, such as attending critical government hearings.
Despite some differences in objectives, activities and target groups, the academies share several characteristics. All three:
- seek to increase the level and effectiveness of community involvement among older people;
- incorporate structured educational experiences (including attending public meetings and touring local facilities) that draw on community officials and practitioners as faculty;
- rely on community partnerships to recruit participants and provide access to officials, expertise, materials and other resources;
- benefit from leadership by staff at community aging organizations who view senior advocacy and education as central to their missions; and
- follow familiar formats each time the programs are offered, but are flexible as to the topics, teaching approaches and partnering options.
Below is a brief description of these model programs:
The Atlanta Region Leadership Academy: Promoting Leadership through Volunteerism
The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has offered its Leadership Academy annually since 1996. The academy was developed by the Area Agency on Aging (within ARC) as a vehicle for attracting the region’s growing number of new retirees to volunteerism, including service on legislative task forces and other community efforts. For the first six years, the academy has been based in Cobb County, one of the region’s ten counties with an average of 18 participants per year. Organizers are now working with the ARC to make the program region wide.
The Leadership Academy begins with a two-day seminar at a retreat in the mountains. The seminar includes information about the Atlanta region, as well as leadership skills and government and volunteer opportunities. Follow-up sessions are held during the year on topics of special interest, such as transportation or the environment.
A distinguishing feature of Atlanta’s program is that participants must make a specific volunteer commitment. Each attendee is matched with one of about 20 local organizations and is asked to volunteer an average of 25—35 hours per month for a year.
Milwaukee County Senior Statesman Program: Involving Older People in County Government
The Milwaukee County Senior Statesman Program was founded in 1997 in response to concerns that county government’s role in delivering and financing services in Wisconsin was not widely understood. A similar program, the Senior Statesmanship Program of Wisconsin, has been coordinated since the late 1980s by the statewide Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups (CWAG) to educate older people about the legislative process in Madison, the state’s capital.
The newer program is coordinated by the Milwaukee County Department on Aging, which serves as the county’s Area Agency on Aging, with assistance from CWAG and the Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center (WGEC).
The program is offered once a year to 25 people, and has always had more than enough participants. It is three days long, beginning on Wednesday with a welcome luncheon and ending on Friday with a graduation ceremony.
Though the program is anchored at Marquette University, the educational approach is highly experiential. Program dates are planned to coincide with a county board meeting, and participants meet with the chairs of all committees. The program has included a tour of the county transit facility and 
observations of the court system and jail. The graduation ceremony is held at the county’s performing arts center and includes a backstage tour.
Participants who complete the program are invited each year to attend a five-hour reunion session, which expands the opportunity for networking and sharing advocacy experiences. Recent reunions have been held at the airport and the zoo.
Mecklenburg County Council on Aging’s Program for Senior Advocates (PSA): Tailoring Seminars to Existing Groups of Older People
The Program for Senior Advocates (PSA) in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, has been operating since 1998. The program, offered about three times each year, is coordinated by the Mecklenburg County Council on Aging, a small nonprofit organization based in Charlotte that receives funding from Mecklenburg County and the United Way to advocate for older people.
The program was first proposed to the council by the Top Ladies of Distinction, an African American women’s group, to help older adults advocate for themselves — especially those with limited education and income. The council agreed, seeing PSA as an opportunity to promote its mission. Early programs were held in Charlotte at churches or at nutrition sites for seniors and were attended primarily by people who fit the original target profile. More recently, programs have been held at the Shepherd Center, a national organization that conducts educational seminars and provides services to more affluent retirees, many of whom have professional backgrounds and purchase services privately.
The PSA format is flexible, but has typically consisted of 10 one-hour sessions over a 10-week period. At the first session, participants are asked to identify a community issue or problem they want to address. Subsequent sessions can be tailored to the chosen topic. (One group, for example, decided to work on improving accessibility to retail stores.) Each program generally covers topics such as goal-setting, Charlotte’s Just1Call information and referral system, Area Agency on Aging resources, assertiveness training and public speaking. Some programs also include attendance at a county budget hearing. A graduation ceremony usually is held for academy participants, though some co-sponsoring groups have opted not to include one.
Similarities and Differences across Academies
Academies Target Older Adults, but Subgroups Vary
All three academies were designed with older people in mind, of course, but the subgroups targeted by each program have influenced marketing, content and teaching approach. Charlotte opens its program to people who are at least 60, while Atlanta uses the lower threshold of 55. Milwaukee does not have a minimum age.
The Atlanta Leadership Academy’s marketing brochure includes a picture of a healthy-looking couple and describes the program as “designed for the educated, independent retiree who seeks new growth and challenge.” This targeting stems from the goal of the program, which is to involve recent professional retirees in their communities through volunteer activities.
Charlotte’s Program for Senior Advocates began with the goal of teaching self-advocacy to older adults who have limited education and low income. Early programs were held at senior nutrition sites, which have traditionally served people fitting that profile. When program operators decided to partner with the Shepherd’s Centers, however, a more affluent, better-educated constituency had different preferences. For example, the Shepherd’s Center group, many of whom had college degrees, did not want to participate in a graduation ceremony.
The Milwaukee County Senior Statesman Program does not target any specific subgroup, but seeks to mirror the county’s considerable ethnic, racial and economic diversity. The program’s popularity has meant that not all applicants can be admitted, and this has caused political concerns among county board supervisors. As a result, at least one resident from each county district is invited to participate.
Academies Are Anchored in Large Metro Areas
The three academies are best characterized as urban/suburban, drawing on substantial population bases. The 10-county Atlanta region includes the city of Atlanta and surrounding, largely suburban communities. About 3.5 million people live in this rapidly growing area. For its first six years, the Leadership Academy has been based in Cobb County, the third largest of the region. Partly in response to increasing difficulty recruiting participants, the program is now transitioning to a regional model that will allow it to draw on a much larger population.
Milwaukee County’s Senior Statesman Program is centered in Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin with a population of about 600,000. The program recruits participants from Milwaukee and the largely suburban communities within the county, for a total population base of over 940,000.
The Program for Senior Advocates is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, a city of about 540,000 — the state’s largest — and includes the rest of Mecklenburg County, which has a total population of nearly 700,000.
The Importance of Partners
Each of the three academies relies on community partnerships to succeed. Partners have been crucial in four primary ways: maintaining political support; sharing program administration and costs; gaining access to people, places and expertise; and gaining credibility.
Maintaining Political Support
Political dimensions have been most apparent in Milwaukee, where the Senior Statesman program has experienced both the benefits and hazards of a high-profile relationship with civic leaders. County board supervisors and other officials pay attention to the program, giving it cachet and contributing to its popularity, but recent turmoil in county government — in which supervisors were recalled by the voters — meant canceling one session. To ensure continuing partnership with political leaders, program organizers give each county board supervisor the opportunity to nominate participants.
Sharing Program Administration and Costs
All three academies rely on partners to help with administration. The Atlanta Regional Commission sought partners through its existing network of county aging offices and ran the program in Cobb County for the first several years. Atlanta also received financial support through a corporate partner, Georgia Power. Charlotte’s program only operates when a community organization, such as a nutrition site or Shepherd’s Center, is willing to host it. Milwaukee County has subcontracted the operation of its program to the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups (CWAG), which had logistical expertise from its experience with a statewide program, and to the Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center (WGEC), which provides the educational materials.
Gaining Access to People, Places and Expertise
Each academy relies on partners to serve as faculty, to welcome participants into their organizations (for tours, observations or volunteer opportunities), and to provide expert advice. In Milwaukee, access to county officials and facilities is the centerpiece of the experience. In Atlanta, human resource professionals have provided important insights about the target group — recent retirees — through their participation on an advisory board. In Charlotte, community leaders from the Area Agency on Aging and other groups are regular faculty members.
Gaining Credibility
Atlanta program organizers believe the partnership with Georgia Power has significance beyond the company’s donations of money and its funding of printing services. Being associated with a large corporation gives the academy credibility, particularly with the retired professionals who are an important part of their target group. Charlotte and Milwaukee, meanwhile, both maintain partnerships with universities. The Milwaukee program is anchored on the Marquette University campus, giving it the aura of higher education and perhaps allaying fears that the academy is long on political organizing and short on content. The Charlotte program relies on a graduate intern from the University of North Carolina to conduct outreach for hosting organizations.
Costs and Funding Sources
The greatest cost of these academies is staff time for planning sessions. Operating costs are low, consisting primarily of printed marketing and course materials, food for participants, and transportation for participants who need it. Milwaukee and Atlanta report spending less than $2,500 per class of 20-25 people, or about $100 per person. Cash needs are low in all three sites, and the mix of monetary and in-kind support varies.
In Atlanta, Georgia Power has provided cash donations. In Milwaukee, the Department on Aging uses discretionary funds to cover the program’s monetary needs. Cash costs are lower in Charlotte, where hosting sites typically provide the food.
The greatest in-kind contribution for all three programs is planning time. As Area Agencies on Aging, both the Atlanta Regional Council and the Milwaukee Department on Aging can use development funding under Title III of the Older Americans Act. Atlanta also operates a federally funded Medicare Watch project, in which older people are recruited as volunteers to detect Medicare fraud. The recruitment capacity developed for Medicare Watch can also be used to solicit participants for the Leadership Academy. In Charlotte, the Council on Aging receives funding from Mecklenburg County and the United Way to conduct advocacy for older people, so the Program for Senior Advocacy (PSA) is supported with core funding. The council spends about $3,000 per semester for a student intern, whose primary responsibility is conducting outreach to find community partners interested in hosting a PSA series.
In the Atlanta region, Cobb County has also made substantial in-kind contributions to the program. The county has been responsible for recruitment of participants and has shared in the planning process. Now that the program is becoming regional, other counties will make similar contributions.
The academies all benefit from session presenters who contribute their time. None of the three programs has asked participants to pay fees, citing concerns about creating a disincentive or barrier to participate.
Challenges
Each of the academies has faced some modest challenges related to program model or target group demographics.
Recruitment and Retention of Participants
Atlanta has averaged about 18 participants in its first several years of operating the Leadership Academy in Cobb County. From the beginning, recruitment of participants has been challenging. Attendees have noted that the volunteer commitment sought (25-35 hours per month) is substantial, particularly because many of those recruited already have existing obligations. Organizers have thus made some adjustments. For example, volunteer hours now may be averaged over the year, to allow for extended travel in certain months. The program has also stepped back from its initial focus on new retirees, reasoning that when people first stop working, they do things (such as visiting distant children) that they have been waiting to do for a long time, and are not ready to make substantial volunteer commitments immediately. The program’s local partner, Cobb County, has supported the academy’s transition to become a regional program to expand the base of potential volunteers throughout the 10-county region. Now, rather than needing to find an entire class of volunteers from a single county, each county will recruit two or three people a year.
Charlotte’s challenge has been retention of participants, a problem particular to its multi-week format (one hour per week for 10 weeks). Initial classes are generally well attended, but often experience significant attrition in subsequent weeks. Two strategies have been adopted to address this problem. First, the program has created an incentive by bestowing special distinction at graduation on participants who attend all 10 sessions. Second, since the incentive doesn’t benefit groups that have chosen not to include a graduation ceremony, the program is experimenting with an abbreviated course that runs for six weeks.
Accessibility
The Milwaukee program initially was hindered by its limited level of physical accessibility. Though organizers were prepared for low literacy levels and had tutors on hand to assist with completing program materials and evaluations, the unexpected level of physical disability among participants created logistical challenges. Subsequent programs have anticipated this by ensuring that transportation is readily available for participants who need assistance getting from one activity to the next and by providing enough volunteers for one-on-one assistance to those who need it.
Lessons Learned
Each of the academies collects participant feedback and has made adjustments based on that input. Milwaukee has begun a more outcomes-oriented evaluation that will have results in 2004. At the beginning and end of the 2003 Senior Statesman program, the Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center conducted a pre/post test to determine whether those attending the program became better educated and more interested in advocating for older adults. The evaluation includes plans to conduct a follow-up survey in January, 2004 to determine whether the participants increased their involvement in advocacy for older people.
Despite the lack of hard evaluation data to date, academy organizers have gleaned some important lessons:
- A lead organization that sees a senior academy as central to its mission is vital to initiate and sustain an effort over time. Area agencies on aging, councils on aging and other senior advocacy organizations are particularly well-suited for this function.
- Organizational and individual partners are critical to success. Partners contribute cash, faculty and other in-kind services, as well as provide political assistance. The ongoing support of public officials is especially important, given the use of public funds and the political sensitivity of advocacy efforts.
- The curriculum and program approach must be tailored to the specific goals of a community’s senior academy, and to the target group of participants.
- Accessibility must be considered in all its dimensions, including physical demands, transportation, oral and written language, and literacy levels.
For More Information
Maureen Kelly, Atlanta Regional Commission Leadership Academy:
mkelly@atlantaregional.com
Stephanie Sue Stein, Milwaukee County Department on Aging:
sstein@milwaukeecounty.com
Julie Murphy, Wisconsin Geriatric Education Center, Marquette University:
julie.murphy@marquette.edu
Ruth Solomon, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Council on Aging:
ruthage@carolina.rr.com
Paul Saucier, Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine:
pauls@usm.maine.edu
Acknowledgements
This description was prepared by Paul Saucier from interviews with: Cheryl Shramm and Kathryn Lawler, Atlanta Regional Commission; Dick and Pat Feuling, and Ann Plaisance, graduates of Milwaukee County’s Senior Statesmen Program; Stephanie Sue Stein, Milwaukee County Department on Aging; Ruth Solomon, Mecklenburg County Council on Aging. Julie Murphy provided information about the evaluation of the Milwaukee Senior Statesmen Program.
Rating: based on 3 users
|
 |
|