Aging Boom’s Looming Financial Crisis for Older Adults

Sept. 13, 2010 - PRLog -- Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, a top-ranked professional social work journal published by the Alliance for Children and Families (http://www.familiesinsociety.org), has released Aging in Poverty: A Call to Action. Created in collaboration with the Alliance’s New Age of Aging initiative (http://newageofaging.org), the supplement serves as a forum for critical dialogue about issues facing older adults who are living just above what the federal government considers poverty.

Virtually all the program administrators, practitioners, and researchers who contributed to this special supplement see the current financial crisis for seniors as the worst they have ever experienced in the many decades they have been working in human services.

Many of these older adults are clinging to what little savings and assets they have, putting them just out of reach for supportive services such as Medicare, and leaving them with difficult decisions about what they can afford. For many, that means choosing between housing, health care and medications, or an adequate diet. Living just above the federal poverty line leaves many of these individuals with few options, and fewer resources.

The supplement, available for download at http://www.familiesinsociety.org/new/SpecialIssue/AgingIn..., calls on organizations, policymakers, and social service staff to provide the services and, perhaps more important, the voice for these individuals. “We began with discussions about what we all should know about aging in poverty and ways of framing the critical issues. We also began with thoughts of the need to illuminate actual work with the aged,” says Families in Society editor, William Powell.

Organizations represented by the contributing experts (http://www.familiesinsociety.org/new/SpecialIssue/AgingIn...),  include Alpert Jewish Family & Children’s Service, Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, Family Services of Western Pennsylvania, Milwaukee County Department on Aging, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Family Service Agency of Mid-Michigan, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW), and University of Rochester Medical Center.

Peter G. Goldberg, president and CEO of the Alliance for Children and Families, notes, “In crafting this special supplement, the Alliance desired to continue its commitment of bringing awareness to the various facets of pervasive poverty. In 2007, we published the largest single issue in the journal’s history with a collection titled, Working But Poor: Next Steps for Social Work Strategies and Collaborations. In that issue, several contributors touched on the worsening situation for older adults whose work histories have been sporadic, or who have held jobs that provide meager, if any, retirement benefits.”

Based on the research and experience of Aging in Poverty’s, it is clear that addressing older adult poverty covers a wide field. Some of the more immediate recommendations include:

• creating and utilizing a more accurate measure to determine what is “real” poverty,
• restructuring Social Security and Medicare so that they better cover all those who are most in need,
• doing a better job of screening to get care to people in the early stages of a health condition before it progresses and becomes more expensive to treat, and
• using case managers to help design care that is both more effective and cost efficient.

The contributors to Aging in Poverty all ask the same question: Who else will speak for the elderly who are so proud—and when they are much too reluctant to ask for help themselves?

“Advocacy needs to be kept alive. If you’re not at the table, then you’re not looking out for the needs of older people and their needs will be ignored,” according to Tom Frazier, who, as the former head of the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, was an influential lobbyist for seniors for nearly 27 years. Frazier has also worked with Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging, to get funding to cover hiring advocates in every state as part of the Older Americans Act.

A PDF download is available on the Families in Society website: http://www.familiesinsociety.org/new/SpecialIssue/AgingInPoverty/AgingInPoverty.pdf

Founded in 1920, Families in Society is the oldest social work journal in the United States and continues to serve as an important source of expert, interdisciplinary information for professionals in social work and related fields such as psychology, nursing, and behavioral health. The journal’s articles are informative, instructive, reflective, and, periodically, controversial. Typically, they examine a broad range of human service activities, such as advocacy; family-life education; public policy; agency administration; professional training and education; and group, family, and individual counseling.

Families in Society scholarship is routinely distributed via national and international partners to supplement research compilations on a variety of topics. Recent examples include the Administration on Aging and the Children’s Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Veterans Health Administration in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Foster Family-Based Treatment Association, International Foster Care Organisation, Better Care Network (UNICEF/Child Protection Sect.), Integrated Policy & Legislation Team (Canadian Ministry of Children and Family Development), Australian Association of Social Workers, Center for Victims of Torture, Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program, Protective Services Training Institute of Texas, and Milwaukee Public Schools.

The Alliance for Children and Families, headquartered in Milwaukee, provides an in-house editorial and support staff which publishes the quarterly print journal and its companion website, Families in Society Online. The Alliance is the United States’ largest association of private, nonprofit human service agencies and organizations. Its mission is to build the capacity of its members to serve and advocate for children, families, and communities. Its members annually serve more than 3.4 million people with a wide array of programs and services.

For additional information about Families in Society or the Alliance for Children and Families, please visit http://www.FamiliesInSociety.org/About.asp

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Now in its 91st year, Families in Society focuses on the art, science, and practice of social work and is one of the most respected professional journals in North America on social and human services.