Overview of the Program

Program Summary

HSM/270

July 27, 2014

Overview of the program

Continental Senior Center is an agency that design and implement programs for the senior community of Westminster located in the City of Westminster, Virginia. The Continental Senior Center will involve a number of seniors in the community that are able and have the experience as leaders, teachers and learners who know the community and the people and want to serve them. Continental Senior Center will provide a balanced, diverse, and coordinated program which in turn will promote the senior center as a model for the aging and aged and set an example for other programs to come. Continental Senior Center is located in a convenient and accessible location for the clients that will be served. Continental Senior Center is here to assist in meeting the needs of the seniors in the community and to promote successful aging and independence.

Historically rich is what is so good about the Westminster community that Continental Senior Center will be helping to maintain its integrity, heritage and livelihood. The Westminster community was founded nearly 200 years ago and many of the residents here now are descendants from so many years ago of the residents of the past 200 years. At this time approximately 60% of the population of Westminster is over the age of 60 and have lived in Westminster all of their lives. Even though it is a historically rich community there is at least 50% earning poverty-level incomes today because many are retired or work part-time, or cannot work period. Technology firms started locating their business in the community within the last 5 years so the Westminster community has started to expand. They built new homes that attracted younger families to the community which gave the Continental Senior Center and their other funding sources more of a reason to support the seniors in the community because everyone wins.

The mission, goal and objectives of the Continental Senior Center program is to starve out homeliness, hunger, and poverty in this Westminster community and assist the seniors to stay independent, mobile, and healthy as long as possible. Continental Senior Center target population is seniors 60 years of age and older, low income, living in poverty, homeless or on the verge of being homeless. Continental Senior Center promotes successful aging and their tagline is "In the Heart of Things," it not only refers to the downtown location, but also emphasizes that the senior center is actively involved in activities around the community particularly the ones that involves seniors. The Continental Senior Center will provide referral services and information for clients seeking help with taxes, health, housing, and other concerns. Also there will be computerized information assistance to assist seniors and their family member to access available area services. There will also be case management services available 3 days per week and for extreme emergencies. When there is an extreme emergency there has to be a referral from another agency, such as human service, the police or the courts and then there would be a person on call for these situations

Assessment

The purpose of this program is to educate the senior's 60 years old and above about the help that is out there for them and assist them in getting the services they need. Keeping as many seniors in the community as possible and them being independent and helping their community to grow and be prosperous for many more years to come with the younger families moving in. Preventing homelessness and hunger is a big goal of the Continental Senior Center and in this community they will work to alleviate it. Continental Senior Center function is to remain a stable so that the programs which assist the target population in fulfilling their needs and desires can continue to be met. The Continental Senior Center is not only providing these services they are allowing people who have been in the same community for years to stay among the people they have grown with a familiar environment. Both qualitative and quantitative measurements show what is needed for the program to be a success, how the program has performed in the past five years and what accomplishments the stakeholders would like to see happen to improve the community that it serves within the boundaries of this program in the future.

Needs and problem statement

For profit or non-profit funding is always the biggest issue and the most important one for the program before the program gets the green light, to proceed forward. To meet the challenge to get the program started it requires paying attention to detail, creative ability not just in budgeting but also in creating activities. Also must have commitment to the program, understanding of the stakeholders is a must, and identification of potential grant donors by the staff member's assigned the task of finding the needed funding is a need to know for all staff involved. The support for the program from the community, staff and the interest of new technology firms and the younger families moving in and with recognition of clear and identifiable needs, and the willingness of everyone involved to work hard to make the program successful are definitely there, the issue now is how to pay for it all.

The problem for the senior's in the historical Westminster community is that many have been there all their lives, 60% of them are 60 years old or older, and they just do not have resources they had in the past today. Most of them do not work, have retired, or have a medical condition preventing them from being as productive as they would like. The seniors find themselves having to go into a nursing facility or to live other places since many family members are very limited. The senior's citizens also have been ending up homeless, without food, and needing medical treatment and most of them some help from Continental Senior Center could address and help the senior to stay independent and healthy, but they must come forward to be acknowledged. Within the last 5 years these issues are becoming more rapid in this community with many of them having little family to depend on, getting older, and less resourceful most don't even know what type of help or assistance is out there for them.

There are at least 100,000 of the seniors in the community that will be affected at some point in time with 10% being affected in the last 5 years which makes that total bout 10,000 seniors that came in for assistance during that time. While 62% of the seniors