For an elderly person who can’t get out much and has very limited contact with others, a familiar voice calling once a week on the phone could provide enough of a lift to brighten an entire day. Or the caller could be a lifesaver.
Safe at Home, a program begun this month by Jewish Family and Children’s Services in San Francisco, should provide a range of benefits — to both the volunteers who make those calls, and to the recipients.
JFCS’ goal is to recruit up to 14 volunteers, each working a two-hour shift one morning a week. The program will begin modestly, explains Debbi Goodman, volunteer coordinator for JFCS’ Seniors At Home division. “We are starting by reaching out to clients of the agency.”
Typically, she said, these individuals are “isolated. They are homebound. They may have some home care or a care manager who sees them monthly.”
Their situation is not unique, either. “People are living longer — to their late 80s, 90s,” Goodman said. “Often they’ve outlived their peers and a lot of their relatives, so there’s nobody to make sure they’re OK.”
Each volunteer caller will be assigned to check in with the same people every week.
“The hope is,” said Goodman, “as the weeks go by, they’re getting to know the people on the phone. And beyond the ‘check-ins,’ more connections are being made…It may turn into more of a ‘conversational phone visit.'”
The program will serve a total of 20 clients. As the callers change, Monday through Friday, the client will get to know five different phone friends, each contacting them between 9 and 11 a.m.
A key feature of Safe at Home is that it’s directly connected with JFCS, a social service agency. Not only are clients already in the system, but volunteers can take their questions and concerns to case workers who know the clients.
“We are training volunteers to be alert, so they know what physical problems [the clients] have, to be alert if they’re hearing some things that don’t sound right, or maybe if the person is going downhill,” said Goodman. If the situation sounds alarming, she added, “we can get a social worker out there right away.”
All volunteers will go through a 2-1/2-hour initial training session. A workshop was held in September, and another is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 28 for new recruits.
Betty Platt, who is in her 70s, was one of the first to sign up as a volunteer. Safe at Home “sounded interesting,” she said, “so I thought I would try it.” Platt moved to San Francisco’s Rhoda Goldman Plaza at the beginning of this year, so she simply has to go next door to the JFCS offices to do her shift. No stranger to volunteering, Platt was looking for an opportunity to do more. Safe at Home seemed like a sound concept: “I think it’s a good idea,” she said.
Because of its close proximity and because most of its residents are no longer working at paid jobs, Rhoda Goldman Plaza, an assisted-living community, “is a good place to recruit,” noted Goodman. It’s a place where she has found some “bright, articulate” recruits, including Platt.
Volunteer requirements are not cumbersome. Those who sign up must go through the initial training, of course, and will receive ongoing help as needed. Goodman envisions holding group sessions every couple months, to deal with “issues that come up.”
“This is a chance for group discussion, and for people to share ideas.”
Beyond the willingness to make a regular time commitment and go through training, the person should have a “good telephone voice” and be able to relate to an older person. And, perhaps most importantly, the caller should be “someone who’s able to listen,” Goodman said.
Lynne Michaelis, a trained social worker, is another eager recruit. As soon as she heard about Safe at Home, she needed no convincing to sign up. “I think it’s really brilliant,” she said. “It’s a real opening for any kind of emergency that we can put our fingers on.”
She was already linked up with the Seniors at Home division, visiting an older couple once or twice a week in their home, or escorting them as needed to the doctor or elsewhere. “It’s really been very, very interesting,” Michaelis said. “It’s a way to be able to help people.” Though her visit “was supposed to be one-on-one” with the ailing husband, “it became a threesome,” she said, laughing. “It developed into a very warm and special relationship.”
Michaelis believes Safe at Home has great potential, calling it “a very important tool for the community.
“I’m sure once we get going on this program, it’s going to have a big impact and it’s probably going to grow.”
The program will start in San Francisco, then “branch out within the agency to Marin and the Peninsula,” said Goodman. The hope is that each branch office will eventually put in place its own volunteer-based program.
Michaelis, who was born in Australia, studied in England, lived and worked in Israel and moved to San Francisco for two years with her Israeli husband. She began volunteering as a way to “get involved in the community.”
She has only accolades for JFCS. “It’s an incredible organization,” she said. “They’re stable, they have wonderful ideas, and there’s lots of support.”