Offers Enhanced Programs For The Elderly
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Department for the Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli announced that the city’s first eight Innovative Senior Centers are now open for the city’s senior population.
As described, Innovative Senior Centers offer a new model of centers for older New Yorkers by providing enhanced programming, including wellness programs, additional access to health care services, arts and cultural programs, as well as new technological and volunteer opportunities.
The senior centers also go beyond the offerings of the traditional senior center to include flexible and expanded hours on evenings and weekends, and café-style flexible meal times. These centers include the opening of the nation’s first ever senior centers with programming specifically for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and visually impaired communities. Later this year, two additional Innovative Senior Centers are expected to open in Brooklyn.
Bloomberg made the announcement at one of the city’s eight new innovative senior centers-the Selfhelp Ben Rosenthal Prince Street Senior Center in Flushing. This center will open on alternate Saturdays, and for the first time offers vegetarian meals on those days for Flushing’s underserved Hindu community.
The Ben Rosenthal Center, which serves over 400 seniors a day, is also adding an Arthritis Management program, expanding its technology infrastructure to help homebound seniors and creating new recreational and social activities to further bolster its Saturday programming. The mayor and commissioner were joined by Stuart Kaplan, CEO of Selfhelp Community Services.
“We have charged our new senior center models with not simply expanding their programs and services, but with re-imagining centers for the 21st century senior,” said Bloomberg. “Our administration will take on this challenge as we have always done, by focusing on innovation, demanding accountability, measuring results and consistently improving to meet the needs of our city’s older New Yorkers and make ours truly a ‘City for all Ages.'”
“We are proud to partner with Selfhelp as they are a pioneer in using technology to improve the well-being of its members and enable them to live independently and securely in the privacy and comfort of their own homes,” said Aging Commissioner Barrios-Paoli. “One of their first technology ventures was the Virtual Senior Center enabling homebound seniors to participate in senior center classes and activities through two-way video. They have expanded that program and added Tele-Health kiosks, which are used to help members monitor their own health.”
Creating an enhanced senior center model to better serve the New York’s more active and diverse senior population is a key part of creating a more age-friendly city, according to the mayor. While still providing meals and opportunities to socialize with their peers, Innovative Senior Centers are held accountable for producing vibrant programs, high participation rates and better health outcomes for older New Yorkers.
Created in partnership with the Council of Senior Centers and Services, Innovative Senior Centers aim to reach a larger population of older New Yorkers and will work with individual center members to obtain baseline health information upon enrollment and will measure critical health outcomes over time.
Examples of specialized programming by the Innovative Senior Centers include The Selfhelp Ben Rosenthal Senior Center, which is:
– using technology in health and wellness programs, including that which helps improve cognitive acuity;
– offers Tele-Health kiosks to help members monitor their own health;
– has virtual senior center programming enabling homebound seniors to participate in senior center classes and activities through webcams; and
– offers wellness coaching.
The SNAP Innovative Senior Center in Queens also offers
– vegetarian meals;
– specialty programming for the Indian immigrant community;
– a volunteer-run morning “Coffee Club”
– a guest chef program in which prominent members of community prepare favorite meals;
– expanded mental health services and linkages with larger community developing a network of care; and
– “Breakfast for Your Brain” and other cognitive wellness programs
The establishment of Innovative Senior Centers is the cornerstone of Age-friendly NYC, a set of 59 citysponsored and related initiatives announced by the Bloomberg Administration, the New York City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine in 2009 to make New York City more livable for the city’s growing population of older adults. The city’s senior population-today at 1.3 million older New Yorkers- is expected to grow by 46 percent in the next 25 years.
A $3.5 million investment by the city will be supplemented with philanthropic dollars to support evaluation efforts.
