Community Impact Initiative- Helping Older Adults Support Project

Community Impact Initiative- Helping Older Adults Support Project

Group Characteristics

The project focuses on helping older adults aged between 60 and 90 years old. This group includes both male and female older adults in the middle economic class who do not have access to insurance services. This group of people has been selected because they often face challenges such as access to major healthcare services, including medicine and psychological care. Most of the people in the chosen group live in the outskirts of urban centers, while a small number may be living in urban centers, particularly those who initially held jobs at different organizations in urban centers. The kind of assistance will be decided by evaluating the requirements of the older adults, such as housing, medication, sanitation, and other activities that could help in improving their lives. The level of assistance will be determined by the needs of the majority of the people in the group. For instance, if most people require psychological care, then the assistance will include psychological care sessions. The assistance provided will also be based on the age of the group members. For instance, people aged between 80 and 90 years will require more care compared to those aged between 60 and 79 years because they are weaker, and most of them suffer from dementia and other age-related illnesses.

Approaching the people to offer help will be one of the most time-consuming activities because the targeted group members are located in different regions. They will be approached through face-to-face interactions. Different volunteers will be sent to go door to door and inform the older adults about the assisted living services that will be offered at the facility and the different options they will have, such as residing in the assisted living facility or getting a caregiver to help them at home. The volunteers will be required to record the names and addresses of all the elderly people they approach and the options they select. This will help in keeping track of whom to help and determine whether there are enough resources in the facility.

Assistance to Be Provided

The specific assistance that I will bring to the elderly people in the facility will be services such as monitoring medication, personal care including bathing and dressing, laundry and housekeeping, psychological care, and 24-hour emergency care. The main goods that will be provided will be food and medicine. The assistance will be provided in the One Day at A Time Assisted Living facility and at the homes of the elderly who may not be willing to reside in the facility. The facility will be located at a central location that can easily be most of the elderly people residing in their homes to facilitate effective delivery of 24-hour emergency services. The facility will also provide transportation services to the elderly living outside the facility whenever they need to visit the facility for medical and psychological care.

Volunteers, nurses, and caregivers providing assistance to the elderly in the facility and in the comfort of their homes will be required to have good communication skills, interpersonal skills, time management skills, cleanliness, compassion, and a background in medicine to effectively administer medication. They will also be required to have training in nursing. These skills will play a significant role in helping the elderly cope with the challenges they encounter in old age, such as being unable to bathe and feed themselves, developing dementia, and forgetting to take medication (Johnson, 2011). It will also relieve people living with the elderly the burden of taking care of them and failing to complete important duties such as going to work because of the fear that something may happen to their elderly loved ones when they are away (Madden, 2014). The process of providing assistance will be traced and documented by storing the group’s records electronically for easy retrieval.

Project Management

The central operations of the project will be at the One Day at a Time Assisted Living facility. The facility will be at a donated location that was initially a convent. The facility will be renovated to ensure that it meets the required standards of an assisted living facility and maintains the required levels of hospitability and health. The documentation that will be needed to generate and maintain the project are the elderly people health records, including a list of medications they are required to take and details about their next of kin. The security and confidentiality of that documentation will be ensured by encrypting the data before storing it in the facility’s database.

The efforts of the volunteers will be coordinated by requiring them to submit daily reports to their supervisors. Their main tasks will be cleaning the facility, bathing and feeding the elderly in the facility, regularly visiting the elderly in their homes to ensure they are okay, and helping the elderly move around the facility. The expected number of volunteers is ten based on the fact that the facility will be located near medical learning institutions, and most students may volunteer to apply what they learn in school. The efforts of the volunteers will be coordinated by assigning them specific tasks and assigning a supervisor to ensure that the tasks are completed effectively and on time. The volunteers will be screened by reviewing their academic background and experience in taking care of the elderly. Volunteers will also be required to submit a certificate of good conduct to prove that they do not have a criminal history.

Accomplishments in The First Half of the Project

The project will start on 30^th October 2021 and end on 31^st December 2026. The first half of the project will run from 15^th October to 30^th October 2023. This period will include assessing the effectiveness of the project in meeting its purpose and identifying areas of improvement to ensure that the intended audience benefits as expected. The period will also include mobilizing the community to support the project through funding and volunteering. The project intends to assist 1500 people during the first half of the project and 2500 during the second half based on the assumption that there will be more resources during the second half. The effective implementation of the project will, however, require proper preparation. I will, therefore, need three weeks to start up the project before beginning to provide assistance. During these weeks, all the resources needed to provide assistance to the elderly people and approach potential clients who will benefit from the project. I would use records of the available resources and a report of a healthcare official inspector to prove to an outside person that everything is in place to proceed with the program. The project expects ten to fifteen volunteers on a monthly basis. This implies that if, in one month, the facility will have 50 elderly people, the ratio will be 3 or 4 clients per volunteer. Therefore, in the first half, which will be 156, the turnout for volunteers will be 10 to 15 volunteers per week. If the project manages to maintain at least five volunteers per week to be part of the project in the long term, the total number of volunteers by the end of the first half will be 780. These volunteers will be able to effectively handle at least two clients, hence guaranteeing the best care.

Accomplishing The Second Half of the Project

I will have 156 weeks of operations before starting to wrap up the project. During this time, I will assess whether the project has met the anticipated goals and any factors that could be hindering its success. I expect to assist 1000 more people during the second half by providing additional services such as telehealth care to provide psychological care to the elderly, especially those suffering from loneliness. During this period, the number of volunteers will be 786, and the number will increase by five volunteers per week, which means that by the end of the second half, the number will be 1560, which implies that every volunteer will be in charge of assisting at least two clients hence guaranteeing high-quality services. One of the steps that I will take to wrap up the project is stopping the admission of new elderly people into the facility. The second step will be contacting the next of kin of the elderly who will be at the facility during that time to make arrangements on how to move them from the facility to their homes. The facility will also be repainted and cleaned to ensure that it is left in good condition for future projects. A farewell party will be held to conclude relationships with the people being assisted. They will also be given the contacts of caregivers and nurses who can help them in the comfort of their homes even after leaving the facility. They will also be allowed to maintain their caregivers as long as their caregivers are willing to continue assisting them outside the facility.

Project Evaluation

I would evaluate whether the assistance has helped the targeted group by reviewing statistics on the mortality rate of the elderly people in the region where the assistance was provided and the prevalence of psychological issues such as dementia among the elderly in the region. A reduction in mortality rate and psychological issues will be an indication that the project was effective. I would also ask the elderly people’s next of kin whether they have noted any improvements in their loved ones since they enrolled in the facility or began getting assistance from the project. Positive feedback will be an indication that the project was effective. I would also determine, three months after the end of the project, whether the assistance was still having an effect based on the number of clients who continue to see assistance through telehealth services. I would get in touch with the people I helped by visiting them in their homes to see how they are doing and regularly talk to caregivers to get information on the progress of the health of the elderly people under their care. The primary aspect of their condition that I could measure to determine whether any positive impact from the assistance remained is the advancement of mental issues related to old age, such as dementia. I would, however, need to know whether the elderly enrolling for assistance are receiving any help from other healthcare providers to effectively evaluate success after the project ends because there will be a proper distinction between what was offered in the project and what was not part of the project.

Ethics and Christian Worldview Analysis

The Judeo-Islamic-Christian ideal of loving your neighbor as yourself is founded on the assumption that people love themselves by believing that they desire fair treatment and act on this belief (Adamson, 2013). It also emphasizes showing love and care to those around you the same way we would want to receive love and care (Dorff, 2006). The project demonstrates the Judeo-Islamic-Christian ideal of loving your neighbor as yourself by ensuring that the elderly in the facility get the best care and that caregivers sent to offer assistance to the elderly in their homes have the skills and capabilities required to provide the best quality of care. The project also exemplifies the religious principles of a sense of community and compassion for others (McCann & Nahser, 2018). The project also exemplifies the ethical principle of informed consent by ensuring that the elderly are not forced to join the facility and receive assistance from caregivers and nurses. The people I intend to help are different from me due to their age. The age difference between the group and me is more than half, which is why I need to structure effective strategies to bridge the gap and ensure that their needs are effectively met. I might structure the project by including both young and older caregivers to bridge the gap and create increased mutual understanding and respect. The project furthers the goal of affording human value and dignity to all people by ensuring that the elderly get the best care, including being kept clean and being treated with respect (Barak, 2013). It also meets this goal by ensuring that the facility meets the required levels of hygiene and that the elderly are well-fed.

Summary and Reflections

I contacted different healthcare centers to learn about the needs in the local community; especially healthcare needs that are not easily accessible to everyone. They provided input on the scarce healthcare services that most healthcare providers are unwilling to provide due to high costs and the challenge of reaching clients. One of the main local needs that I considered was access to free medical care for the elderly in society’s middle and low economic classes. The second local need was access to medication for age-related illnesses. What was compelling to me about the access to free medical care was the fact that most elderly people do not have insurance coverage to cover their medical expenses. The main avenues that exist for people to receive assistance are free health camps that may target the elderly to ensure that they get basic healthcare services once in a while. Such programs are, however, not effective in providing long-term healthcare to the elderly because they are held once or twice a year. The other factors that were not considered as part of this presentation and might need to be investigated if I were actually to implement a project such as this one are social and legal factors. I need to adhere to the legal requirements that regulate the operation of assisted living facilities. The main requirements focus on care plan requirements, physical building requirements, admission requirements, staffing requirements, and the scope of facility care. Legal requirements also include ensuring that the elderly know their rights and are treated with the utmost respect.

References

Adamson, P. (2013). The Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage: Philosophical and theological perspectives. Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, 24(2), 273-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2012.761415

Barak, A. (2013). Human dignity: The constitutional value and the constitutional right. Understanding Human Dignity. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197265642.003.0020

Dorff, E. N. (2006). Love your neighbor and yourself: A Jewish approach to modern personal ethics. Jewish Publication Society.

Johnson, C. (2011). Taking charge at the assisted living facility. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506325071

Madden, K. (2014). Assisted living or facility? Canadian Geriatrics Journal, 17(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.5770/cgj.17.125

McCann, D. P., & Nahser, F. B. (2018). Implementing Praxiological principles in business. Human Action in Business, 347-364. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351292405-24

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Please follow these instructions when completing Major Assignment 3. You will be creating a project write-up in Microsoft Word and completing an Excel template for the assignment. Refer to the assignment rubric for details about how the assignment will be scored.

Overview

You have decided that 5 years from now, you will dedicate 12 weeks of your time to implementing a project to provide humanitarian assistance to people in your local community.  At that time, you will take a break from your work or retirement and spend at least 30 hours per week for 12 weeks engaged in realizing a project that you are designing now and that you will work to plan and fund between now and when you start your project.

Project details in Word

For your project, you will identify a group of local people that you will assist with a need such as housing, health care or nutrition, education or vocational training, safety, mental health, neighborhood cleanup, or a similar project that has the potential to improve their lives in both the short and long run.

You will contact representatives from local churches, charities, non-governmental organizations, and/or government organizations to learn about areas of need in your community.

For your project, you will provide specifics of what you will achieve and how the success of your project should be measured.

To ensure that your project will succeed in the 12 weeks provided, you will divide your project into two halves, identifying what will be accomplished at the end of each 6-week interval and how it will be clear to outside people that the step has been accomplished successfully.

For the project as a whole, you will also identify the people, resources, and materials needed to provide your service. Your project must include the assistance of other people, either whom you will recruit as volunteers, whom you will pay for expert assistance, or both.

You will provide a detailed write-up in Microsoft Word (2,000 to 4,000 words) with specifics of your project implementation. For full credit, you must address each point in each section. The objective here is to demonstrate that you have thought through in detail what it would mean to provide certain types of assistance. You must provide a separate section in your document for each item, as indicated here.