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Moderator: Tierney Tully 

07-26-17/12:00 pm CT 

Confirmation # 4944548 

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NWX-CNCS 

Moderator: Tierney Tully

July 26, 2017 

12:00 pm CT

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you all for standing by. All participants will be on a 

listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today’s conference. 

At that time you can press Star 1 to ask a question from the phone line. 

I’d also like to inform parties that the call is being recorded. If you have any 

objections, you may disconnect at this time. 

And I’d now like to turn the meeting over to Ms. Mary Hyde. Thank you, 

ma’am. You may begin.

Mary Hyde: Thank you and thank you for everyone on the phone as well as in the room. 

We have several folks in the room, both colleagues and guests, and we’re very 

excited to have them here with us today as well as those of you who have 

taken some time out of your day to join us by phone. 

We are very excited to have our third research and evidence webinar today 

entitled Good for Your Health: Volunteering for Senior Corps. My name is 

Mary Hyde and I’m the Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation 

here at the Corporation for National and Community Service. Our offices 
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objectives are to build and share knowledge on civic engagement, 

volunteering, and national service by funding research and supporting our 

programs and their grantees.

We strive to share and use our research findings in several ways, including 

research reports on our evidence exchange -- which is a website on 

nationalservice.gov -- an annual research summit, and a quarterly newsletter. 

Our new webinar series is another way to share cutting edge research 

conducted by grantees or in collaboration with our research partners and 

contractors, like those that you will hear from today. 

As it happens, this month’s webinar is also part of a much larger media 

campaign highlighting Senior Corps programs, stories from volunteers with 

the Senior Corps programs, research as well as all sorts of ways you can sign 

up and volunteer with the program. So if you are interested in anything 

beyond this particular research study more in interested all things Senior 

Corps, please visit us as nationalservice.gov. We have a lot of additional 

information there. 

You’re also going to find that we’re trying to build out a list of references on 

the Senior Corps page for research this is specific to aging, health, 

volunteering, and caregiving. We are currently building this list and welcome 

any suggestions for additions. 

Today’s webinar focuses on two longitudinal studies that have been sponsored 

by CNCS and Managed Care by the Office of Research and Evaluation, 

particularly by Mr. Anthony Nerino. One sample included volunteers in the 

foster grandparent and senior companion program. A second sample included 

caregivers who received respite from senior companions. This webinar shares 

findings from both studies, which show the strength of these programs to 
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support overall health of adult and the opportunities to expand and strengthen 

these programs. 

Before I move into introducing our speakers for today, I’d like to cover a few 

housekeeping details and I will turn that over to my colleague Mr. (Joseph 

Green).

(Joseph Green): All right. Thanks, Mary. Just a few quick notes. For those of you joining us 

digitally if you’re listening to our voices, that means you have successfully 

logged onto the call. So, congratulations. Step one done. 

If you are also potentially logged into the audio via the Skype, you can go 

ahead and actually turn that audio because that might produce some feedback 

for you. Skype is purely for the visual side of things. So just so everyone is 

aware of that, the call is where we will be recording. 

As (Sarah) mentioned earlier, this is being recorded so if you’re not 

comfortable with that you can sign off the call now. Otherwise, we will be 

posting the recording as well as the Slides for this presentation on our web 

pages as Mary mentioned after the presentation. 

Something to note -- if by chance the site does fail -- which is always within 

the realm of possibility in this world -- the Slides are attached to the calendar 

invite that you should have received. So please feel free to open those and 

follow along. Our presenters will be saying next Slide throughout so you’ll 

know how to follow them throughout the presentation. 

Additionally within the calendar invite, there is a link to the media campaign 

that Mary mentioned called Senior Corps and Health Benefits. You can click 
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on that and see more about the resources that are out there, including the 

reference list that we’re building. 

Additionally, we are monitoring the chat box, so if you have successfully 

gotten the Skype open, you’ll notice that there is a conversation function. 

When we go to the Q&A section you’ll be able to dial in and ask a call 

vocally and encourage that. if you’re more comfortable, you can also leave 

comments and questions via the chat box. We will do our best to respond to 

those. The speakers are also monitoring that chat box and so when we do get 

to Q&A they will be referencing those as well. 

So if you do experience any other technical difficulties, you can ask in the 

chat box too. We’ll do what we can to help you out in real time. Otherwise, 

hopefully you enjoy the webinar. 

Mary Hyde: Great. So today’s panel is going to have this flow -- we’re going to have 

some introductory comments by Dr. Dawn Carr. It will be followed by the 

presentation on the two studies that are the focus of this webinar by Dr. Annie 

Georges. And we’re going to conclude that presentation with remarks by Ms. 

Deborah Cox-Roush, who is our brand-new Director of Senior Corps here at 

CNCS. We are very excited to have her. 

And we will have a Q&A. So if folks have questions, you know, please feel 

free to ask them at the end. 

But first we’re going to start with Dr. Dawn Carr who is Assistant Professor

at the Department of Sociology and Faculty Associate with Pepper Institute on 

Aging and Public Policy at the Florida State University. She is an expert in 

understanding the factors that bolster older adult’s ability to remain healthy 

and active as long as possible. 
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She has served as a member of our technical working group and has deep 

expertise in this area. So we’re really excited to have her give us an 

introduction. And with that, I will hand it over to you, Dawn.

Dawn Carr: Wonderful. Are you able to hear me okay? 

Mary Hyde: Yes. 

Dawn Carr: Okay, great. Well, I’ll go ahead and get started. If you don’t mind switching 

to the next Slide. 

(Joseph Green): Sure. 

Dawn Carr: So just to - I was asked to speak for just a couple minutes to get us started. 

And I thought it would be helpful to really just highlight three key points that 

I think are useful in better understanding why what you’re going to hear from 

Annie is so important. 

So the first point that I wanted to raise is that older adults are an under kept

resource. So for those of us who study aging, we’re aware of the demographic 

changes that we have ahead of us. And there’s a growing proportion of the 

population over the age of 65. And sometimes, you know, when I first started 

this venture of understanding and learning about aging, it was a pretty rare 

thing to see information in the media but these days you learn and hear about 

the aging population on a daily basis. And oftentimes this is framed as a 

problem.

And for those of us who study especially volunteerism, we really believe this 

is a missed opportunity. Our gains in longevity have given us a whole new 
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phase of life, but in many cases, we’re not necessarily utilizing the time, 

skills, and abilities of many of our nation’s older people. 

So one of the ways that their talents and abilities are best utilized is through 

volunteering. And in the programs like what you’ll hear about today, older 

adults contribute in really right profound and important ways. And a critical 

consequence of these contributions is that volunteering decreases several 

burdens, and this brings me to the second point I wanted to make. 

It decreases burdens on individuals, on communities and organizations and by 

extension on society. So when you’ll hear about the Senior Companion

program, we know that this program utilizes the skills and abilities of older 

people to do things like decreasing the stress that caregivers face. And we 

know that this is a group that is disproportionately women and it’s especially 

important for working women who are trying to balance care work and paid 

work. And the respite care they receive helps them to be able to continue 

doing the very hard work of caring for their elder family members and still 

being able to keep their jobs. 

And not exactly the same but similarly with the Foster Grandparent program, 

older people make critical contributions to the lives of young people, helping 

prepare the next generation to have greater chances to lead productive lives, 

bolstering both the existing resources that they have but also taking up the 

slack where there are deficits. And this is especially important for at-risk 

kids. 

And there are many organizations like these -- not just the ones you’ll hear 

about today -- that are doing really important things to address social issues. 

And older adults play a critical role in allowing them to make these impacts. 
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But perhaps what’s been most exciting to me and I think many of my 

colleagues who do similar work is related to the last point I want to make 

today, which is that not only do older adults really benefit the people they’re 

helping and the organizations they’re helping, but they also receive great 

benefits to themselves. And volunteering is it turns out especially good for 

our health. 

So it’s of course important to point out that not all older people are able to and 

want to volunteer. Some are unable to physically get around and participate. 

Some don’t have the financial means to pay for the cost of volunteering --

even if they’re minimal -- and others are simply unaware of opportunities or 

don’t have access to these opportunities for other reasons.

But for those that do, research shows that volunteering is good for older adults 

in lots of different ways. And this research is really quite robust. So, what 

many of us who study volunteering and health have learned is that this activity 

is associated with a range of positive health effects including delayed 

mortality, delayed disability, and improved mental health. 

The data have been so compelling that many of us believe that volunteering 

could and really should be thought of as a public health behavior. For 

instance, some of the work that I’ve done has shown that the benefits of 

engaging regularly in various types of volunteer activities in later life. It has 

similar benefits to avoiding disability as other lifestyle behaviors like 

smoking, eating a healthy diet, and exercising. And I think this is a really 

important point.

So we’re not just talking about something that is important to these 

communities, but these health benefits are something we really need to 

understand better. 
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And really what’s especially important if you think about the long-term 

consequences of these kinds of activities is things like decreased cost for longterm care, which we know is one of the things that many of us talking about or 

many of the media articles are talking about are some of our biggest concern 

is that the cost of caring for our growing older population. 

So despite these compelling findings, it’s worth pointing out that there’s a lot 

we don’t know. It’s really challenging and expensive to do research on 

volunteering and following new volunteers into a new volunteer role and 

figuring out how volunteering actually works to benefit older people and those 

who are helping is really tough and something we very much need to 

understand and know better than what we do now. And only a handful of 

studies have effectively begun to do this and virtually none have done this at 

large scale.

So when I was asked to play even a small role in this study looking at the 

Senior Companion Foster Grandparents Program Evaluation Studies that 

you’ll hear about more from Annie here in a moment, I was very excited and I 

think you’ll be as excited as I have been with the results for the first-year

study.

In fact, when we were presented with the preliminary results in May -- the 

ones that you’ll be hearing today -- I think my exact words were, “So 

basically these programs are wildly successful.” So I think that you’ll find this 

is a really exciting result from these studies and I’m looking forward to 

hearing Annie’s presentation. I’m going to turn that over to you, Annie. 

Annie Georges: Thank you. Thank you Dawn. And can everyone hear me okay? 
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(Joseph Green): Yes.

Mary Hyde: Yes.

Annie Georges: Okay. Sounds great. So thank you to all the attendees for your interest in 

learning more about the Senior Whole program. So my name is Annie 

Georges and my colleague and I, Wenson Fung, we will present the research 

we have been doing on the Senior Corps programs. 

So if you can go the second Slide for me, for the presentation.

(Joseph Green): Due to some in the moment jumping with the Slide. I will give this just a 

second. 

Annie Georges: Okay. I will hold on. 

Mary Hyde: And while we wait for that Slide switch, just by way of quick introduction 

Annie and her team have worked with us for a number of years developing 

this research program on Senior Corps. So it’s really exciting to finally get 

some of these findings and have them be so positive after a number of years of 

really building quite an impressive body of work around Senior Corps 

volunteer specifically.

The research on older adults who volunteer is certainly been emerging in the 

past number of years and it’s exciting that the Senior Corps folks can 

contribute to that knowledge base as well. And I think you’ll understand more 

of what I’m saying when you hear exactly what Annie has to share with us 

today. And here we go.

(Joseph Green): Okay. 
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Annie Georges: Yes. And right on time. Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much. And so if 

you go to the second Slide, thank you so much, so for the presentation today 

first we will discuss the research on the Foster Grandparent and Senior 

Companion Volunteers. Then we will discuss the research on caregivers 

receiving respite support. And will leave time at the end for your questions 

and we also have some questions for you about your experience with Senior 

Corps. Next Slide, please. 

Before we begin, I want to take a quick minute to summarize the Senior Corps 

National Service programs. There are three programs -- the Foster 

Grandparent program, Senior Companion, and RSVP. Foster Grandparent 

and the Senior Companion programs have an income requirement and 

minimum number of hours of commitment. There is a small stipend to the 

volunteers to defray the cost of volunteering. 

The Senior Companion program provides direct services to home bound 

clients to support independent living. And Senior Companion program also 

provides services to caregivers caring for family or friend who have difficulty 

with daily living. Next Slide, please. 

As Mary mentioned earlier, we have been working on evaluating the Senior 

Corps program for several years. There was initially a cross sectional 

evaluation of those programs which was completed in 2014. The first 

evaluation was the census of all Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion 

volunteers, the caregivers, and the Senior Companion clients.

The second evaluation is the one we are discussing today. It is a longitudinal 

evaluation where we are following a group of volunteers and caregivers over 

time. In both studies, the main goal is to document the effectiveness of the 
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programs and to collect information that would help inform how to improve 

the programs. Next Slide. 

The data collected for the volunteer study are quite rich and can address many 

questions about program effectiveness such as satisfaction, experience with 

training, and change in health including change in health among those 

volunteers who left the program. Next Slide, please.

The data for the caregiver study are also quite rich. Those data can address 

questions on how the Senior Corps Program serve the needs of the community 

and how respite support affects change in caregiver’s health. Next Slide, 

please.

First, I’m going to focus on the volunteer study. Next Slide. 

As mentioned earlier, this is a comprehensive multi-year evaluation of the 

Foster Grandparent program and Senior Companion program. There are 

many questions being addressed with the data. For this webinar, we will 

discuss on just a few of those questions. Specifically, we will talk about 

whether the volunteers stay, who is mostly likely to stay with the program, 

what the experience is like, and the satisfaction with the training and support 

they receive to fulfill their service. And we will also discuss changing health 

during their first year in the program. Next Slide. 

I want to spend just a few minutes describing how the study is designed and 

how we collected the data from the volunteers. We developed the survey with 

input from a nine-member technical working group consisting of academic 

experts in gerontology, longitudinal evaluation, psychometrics, measurement 

of stress and depressive symptoms to develop the survey items. 
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We also consulted and had input from a field working group consisting of 

Foster Grandparent program and Senior Companion program project 

directors. The questions were field tested with volunteers. We used the 

information from the pre-test questions to revise any questions that were 

unclear or confusing. 

First time foster grandparent and senior companion volunteers were recruited 

between July and November 2015 with the assistance of the Foster 

Grandparent and Senior Companion program project directors. 

How did we do this? We provided technical assistance to all Foster 

Grandparent and Senior Companion projects at the time the study was 

launched. During the TA, project directors received background about the 

study and who was eligible to participate, how to introduce the study to the 

volunteers, and answers to questions we anticipated the volunteers might have 

about the study. 

During the enrollment period, anyone who was seeking to become a Foster 

Grandparent or Senior Companion for the first time received information 

about the study from their project. If after hearing about the study they agreed 

to participate, they received a packet that included a written summary of the 

study, a consent form, the survey, and prepaid envelope to return the 

completed survey to JBS. 

Project directors would note who received a survey and sent that information 

to JBS. If the survey was not returned, we contacted the volunteer to 

encourage them to complete the survey.

The volunteer study has three rounds of data collection. The first survey was 

completed before the volunteer had their assignment and started their 
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volunteer service. The second survey was completed last year, nine to twelve 

months after the first survey was completed when the volunteer would have 

been engaged in service. The third and final survey is now in the field and 

being collected, which is two years after the first survey would have been 

completed. 

At the time the study was launched in 2015, there were more than 500 foster 

grandparent programs and senior companion programs that were contacted. 

During the enrollment period, about 240 of those projects had one or more 

volunteers enrolled in the study. This reflect 90% of first time volunteers 

agreed to participate and had completed the first survey. 

For the second survey, 88% of the volunteers who took the first survey 

completed the second survey. Next Slide, please. 

So what did we learn about the first-time volunteers? They are low income --

under $20,000 per year, as required. There is a minimum income 

requirement. They are not married; they are single, widowed, divorced, or 

separated. It is a very racially diverse group of females with some college. 

We know from the literature that there is health disparity based on income. 

Particularly, low income individuals have worse health outcomes compared to 

middle income and high-income individuals. 

As I mentioned earlier, nine to twelve months after they completed their first 

survey we contacted the same volunteers and had them take the second 

survey, which allowed us to measure change in key health outcomes but also 

to understand the experience and satisfaction with the program. 
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We did contact all the participants who took the first survey even if they were 

no longer volunteering with foster grandparent or senior companion programs. 

The data from those leavers, as we call them, have provided some valuable 

information about volunteering among the individuals that engaged in national 

service as foster grandparent or senior companion volunteers. 

As I said earlier for the second survey 88% of the volunteers enrolled in the 

study did complete the second survey. 

As a quick overview of what we learned from the first two surveys, is that the 

foster grandparent and senior companion volunteers within the first year of 

service reported improvement in their health. Improvement in health was very 

consistent when we examined change in health among those who stayed in the 

program and among those who had left. 

The foster grandparent and senior companion volunteers who had stayed with 

the program are those who based on existing research are at greater risk of 

health disparity. The change in reported health we found was not the result of 

an exodus of unhealthy individuals out of the program. The data showed that 

the self-rated health was not significantly associated with the odds of leaving 

any of those programs if you were already volunteering. 

So if those who stay and those who leave do not differ in how they rate their 

own health at the start of national service, this certainly strengthens the 

findings that we are going to talk about just now on health outcomes one year 

after beginning national service. 

So let me just go through these analyses. Next Slide, please. Less than onefourth -- about 22% -- of the volunteers leave within five to six months. Next 

Slide. As I mentioned earlier, the volunteers who stay with foster grandparent 
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or senior companion are those who based on the existing research have the 

greatest risk of poor health outcomes. 

For example, individuals with a college degree are more likely to leave, 

whereas individuals who did not complete high school or those with high 

school are more likely to stay with the program. 

The Slide on your screen shows a negative association between education and 

leaving national service. So for example, the odds are lower if the volunteer 

did not complete high school. If we do the inverse of the odds of not 

completing high school, then this group of volunteers is four times more likely 

to stay compared to those who had completed an associate degree or bachelor 

degree. 

And you will also see on your Slide volunteers who were divorced are more 

likely to leave. Volunteers who had difficulties climbing several flights of 

stairs without resting were also more likely to leave. 

So now I’m going to turn the discussion over to Wenson, who will discuss 

what the volunteers reported about their experience with training and support 

to fulfill their service. Next Slide, please. 

Wenson Fung: Whether the volunteers stayed or left the program, they had in general a 

positive attitude about the training and support they received. It was generally 

the case that a higher proportion of those who stayed were satisfied with their 

experience as a foster grandparent or senior companion. For example, 92% of 

the volunteers who stayed were completely or very satisfied overall with their 

experience as a foster grandparent or senior companion. Next Slide, please. 
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There was a similar pattern regarding the volunteer’s perception about 

whether their experience was a good match, whether the service was 

interesting, and whether they felt they had the support and information they 

needed to be successful in their volunteer role. For example, more than 90% 

of the volunteers who stayed agree with those statements. By contrast, 80 to 

90% of the volunteers who left agree with those statements. Next Slide. 

The volunteers also reported on features of the program that were helpful. 

The pattern here is the same. The volunteers who stayed had positive report 

on how helpful the training, support, flexibility, and the stipend was. For 

example, at least 90% of the volunteers who stayed reported training support 

and flexibility to manage time was extremely or very helpful. By contrast 

among the volunteers who left 71 to 78% of them reported training support 

and flexibility was extremely or very helpful. 

I will now turn the discussion back to Annie, who will talk about the health 

outcomes. Next Slide, please. 

Annie Georges: So we analyzed several questions that measured the volunteers’ health. There 

is a question where the volunteer reported about their health in general. There 

are also several items in the instrument that measured how socially and 

emotionally the volunteer feels and items to measure depressive symptoms. 

For this specific webinar, I will only talk about the volunteer self-report of 

their health. But when you see the full report, the results are very consistent 

across all the measures of health that we examine. 

So how did the volunteers rate their health in the first year of national service? 

We examined change in health within the group of volunteers who stayed and 

within the group of volunteers who left. Then we also compared change in 
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health between those who stayed and those who left. After we take into 

account health status at the volunteer started national service as well as change 

in their personal health or the health of a family member or a friend that could 

impact their ability to remain in the program, we find that those who leave 

tend to rate their health as declining. 

So your screen and those of you who have a hard copy, that Slide shows about 

output from two regression models. The one on the left shows factors 

associated with reporting a change to excellent very good health in that first 

year. The odds or reporting excellent or very good health in the first-year

decreases for those who left compared to those who stay. 

And this analysis controls for health and medical condition of the time they 

were starting their volunteer service. It also controls for whether the 

volunteers had any change in health since they took the first survey. And we 

find the direction of the relationship is that those who leave reported declining 

health compared to those who stayed. 

The chart on the right shows factors associated with reporting a change to fair 

or poor health in that first year of service. So the odds of reporting fair or 

poor health in the first-year increases for those who leave compared to those 

who stay. And self-rated health at first followed between leavers and stayers 

was not statistically significant. 

Even though in this particular presentation I am not talking about the other 

health measures, they are extremely consistent in terms of the pattern that I’m 

just describing here with this one measure. Next Slide, please. 
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So as I mentioned earlier, we will leave time at the end for questions and 

discussion on both studies. Right now, I want to go into the caregiver study 

which is the second study in this evaluation. Next Slide, please. 

Senior Companion program -- again just a quick reminder -- the Senior 

Companion program provides services to caregivers caring for family or 

friend experiencing difficulty with daily living. And it also provides direct 

services to (inbound) clients to support independent living. 

The second study focuses on the impact on caregivers. For the webinar, we 

will discuss how the caregivers’ needs aligned with the services they received. 

And we will discuss the extent to which caregivers’ health changed following 

respite service. Next Slide, please.

The design of the caregiver study parallels that of the volunteer study. The 

same nine-member technical working group provided input in developing the 

questions. We also consulted in that input from a field working group 

consisting of senior companion project directors. The questions were field 

tested with caregivers. The recruitment was caregivers who were the first 

time seeking respite support from the Senior Companion program. And the 

recruitment was also between July and November 2015 with the assistance of 

the senior companion project directors. 

We provided technical assistance to all those projects who were providing 

respite services at the time the study was launched. During the TA project 

directors received background information about the study -- who was eligible 

to participate, how to introduce the study to the caregivers and answers to 

questions we thought the caregivers might have about the study. 
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During the enrollment period, anyone who was seeking respite for the first 

time received information about the study from their project. If after hearing 

about the study they agreed participate, they received a packet that included a 

written summary of the study, a consent form, the survey, and prepaid envelop 

to return the completed survey to JBS. 

Project directors would note who received a survey and sent that information 

to JBS. If the survey was not returned, we contacted the caregiver to 

encourage them to complete the survey. 

The caregiver study had two rounds of data collection. The first survey was 

completed before the caregiver begun receiving respite support, meaning that 

the senior companion was not yet assigned to them. The second survey was 

scheduled to be nine to twelve months after the first survey was completed. 

As of right now, both rounds of data collection for the caregiver study are 

completed. 

At the time of the study was launched, approximately 130 senior companion 

programs with respite service were contacted. During the enrollment period 

of July to November 2015, 37 of those projects had caregivers enrolled in the 

study. So our sample size that we got the number of participants in the study 

reflects 75% of first time caregivers who had agreed to participate and had 

competed the first survey. 

For the second survey 82% of the caregivers who took the first survey did 

complete the second survey. Next Slide, please.

So who are the caregivers who are seeking respite from senior companion 

programs? The caregivers are female with average household income under 

$50,000. They are married with some college or an associate degree. The 
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duration of the relationship between caregiver and the care recipient range 

from less than six months to more than five years, with more than two-thirds 

providing car to their spouse or a parent for at least two years prior to seeking 

respite support. 

The care recipient also gets other services, but for most of them they have 

been getting these services in the six months prior to getting a senior 

companion. 

For the second survey, which was nine to twelve months after the first survey, 

we contacted all participants who took the first survey -- even if they had 

changed their mind about getting respite support or even if the situation that 

led to seek respite service had changed. 

So now I’m going to turn it back briefly to Wenson who will discuss how the 

caregivers’ needs aligned with the respite support that they received. Next 

Slide, please.

Wenson Fung: One of the things we did was to look at a set of questions on caregivers’ 

expectation or the reason for seeking respite service. And from their

responses to these questions, we identified three groups of caregivers based on 

the level or degree of need for respite service. 

We have three categories of need, which are personal time, household 

management, and managing conflicts. We looked to see how the caregivers 

responded to these questions within each of the three categories of need.

From this analysis, we identified three groups of individuals seeking respite 

services. Those are critical need, those are caregivers who have high need in 

all three categories of need which include personal time, household 
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management, and managing conflicts. The second group includes caregivers 

with essential need. Those are caregivers who have high need in any of the 

three categories. And finally, the third group includes caregivers with 

moderate need. Caregivers who did not identify high need in any of the three 

categories. 

In our initial analysis of the three groups, we found no differences between 

those in the essential and moderate groups. So in consultation and discussion 

with our technical working group panel, we combined these two groups into 

one. Almost half have critical need. As Annie stated earlier, caregiving 

relationship at the time of seeking a senior companion respite is at least two 

years. And only in the prior six months has a caregiver recipient been 

receiving other services, such as home care assistance, adult daycare, meals, 

and transportation. That close to half of critical need when they finally seek 

respite it’s not surprising. Next Slide. 

The analysis shows senior companion respite had the most impact on those 

caregivers with critical need even though they did not have that many more 

hours from their senior companion compared to caregivers with essential or 

moderate need. Caregivers with critical need reported benefits of personal 

time and household management but not that much benefits were reported 

when managing household conflict. 

Now Annie will discuss the caregivers reported about their health in the first 

year. Next Slide. 

Annie Georges: Thank you. So how was the case for the volunteer study? We analyzed 

several questions that measured the caregivers’ health. The caregiver survey 

also included a question on health in general and there are several items in the 
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instrument that measure how socially and emotionally connected the caregiver 

feels, the perception of loneliness, and items to measure depressive symptoms.

So for our presentation, we will only talk about the global measure on selfreport of health. 

So how did the caregivers perceive their health the first year they start 

receiving respite? The results show some improvement in perception of the 

caregiver’s health. The chart on your screen or if you have a hard copy of it 

you will see show that it shows change in how caregivers reported their health 

in that first year of getting respite. 

As a way to read this chart, the bottom horizontal bar shows change from fairpoor health. So how those that reported their health as fair or poor in that first 

survey how that changed when they completed the second survey. So for 

example, in that bottom horizontal bar chart, you’ll see that 40% of caregivers 

who reported fair or poor health prior to receiving respite reported good health 

a year later. 

So if you go to the middle horizontal bar, it shows change from good health. 

In this case 33% went from a self-report of good health to excellent or very 

good health one year later. Next Slide, please.

So in the first year of service, caregivers also reported improvement in being 

socially and emotionally connected. The (unintelligible) caregivers reporting 

feeling alone declined. And the percent of caregivers reporting having people 

they feel close to increased. Next Slide. 

In terms of symptoms of depression, there is some reduction in the percent of 

caregivers reporting symptoms of depression meaning that in the first year 
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after starting respite support, they were reporting fewer symptoms of 

depression.

So this takes me to the conclusion of the presentation of the two studies. And 

I believe now we are going to go to Ms. Deb Cox-Roush, the Director of 

Senior Corps for some remarks. And following Deb’s comments, I will return 

to take your questions and to have a discussion session with you. Thank you. 

Deborah Cox-Roush: Annie and Wenson for such a wonderful presentation. I know it’s hard to 

sum of years of thoughtful and hard work. And of course thank you Dawn, a 

fellow Floridian, from Florida State University for representing the technical 

working group. I know that (TWG) has provided critical insight to this work 

and I appreciate their ongoing interest and commitment to the study. 

Of course, we would not have been nearly as successful were it not for the 

input from the field working group who continue to provide sound advice on 

implementing the study. 

We are also fortunate to have former Senior Corps Director and member of 

(TWG) Dr. Erwin Tan on the line. Now, we haven’t had a chance to meet yet 

in person, but Erwin thank you for your vision you had developing this 

important work. It is part of your legacy to Senior Corps. 

You know, I’m just about seven weeks into my tenure here, but one thing 

that’s impressed me very early on was the growing body of research related to 

our work. CNCS -- and Senior Corps in particular -- continues to lean on 

evidence and research shaping our programming. The Senior Corps research 

agenda is designed to inform and inspire action. The work of this longitudinal 

study is a critical piece to the puzzle.
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As a federal agency taking a hard look at the priorities and return on our 

investment, this is the kind of work that helps us make informed decisions 

regarding national service program design and policy to help ensure that we 

are investing taxpayer dollars in programs that work. We are very pleased 

with the findings that are emerging. However, in some ways we’re really not 

surprised.

For decades, we’ve heard the personal narratives and testimony of the power 

of Senior Corps. Behind these charts and graphs are the compelling and lifechanging stories of widows, retired professionals, and our neighbors. All have 

a story to tell of the impact of Senior Corps. The thoughtful construction and 

implementation of this study is a testament to the strategic approach Senior 

Corps has taken to understand the impact of these programs. 

Dawn, I love the words wildly successful. In my role as Senior Corps 

Director, I look forward to building on this strong foundation as we continue 

to build a body of evidence to tell the story of the effectiveness of Senior 

Corps. 

Before we open the lines of discussion, I also want to provide and offer my 

profound thanks to my colleagues in the Office of research and Evaluation. 

Mary, your team has such energy and enthusiasm. We’re very grateful. And 

particularly Anthony for your leadership. 

I’m looking forward to working more with your team as we move forward and 

keeping this program wildly successful. Thank you. 

Mary Hyde: Thank you, Deborah. Annie, you want to open it up for questions? And 

anyone who has questions, thoughts, please share. 
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((Crosstalk))

Annie Georges: Yes, I’m ready. Thank you, Mary. 

Coordinator: At this time if you would like to ask a question from the phone lines, please 

press star 1. You will be prompted to unmute your phone and record your 

name. Please record your name so that I may introduce your question. Once 

again it is star 1 to ask a question. One moment for those to queue up. 

Mary Hyde: Anthony has a question. 

Anthony Nerino: Well, we have a question in the room. Hi, Annie.

Annie Georges: Hi, Anthony. 

Anthony Nerino: How are you? 

Annie Georges: I’m doing okay. 

Anthony Nerino: Nice job. 

Annie Georges: Thank you. 

Anthony Nerino: My question is you know, these are compelling and interesting findings and 

I’m sure people are going to have some questions about them that would ask 

for greater explanation. But mine is a little different. I would like to know 

what sort of comparisons we’re looking at as we conclude year two, which at 

this point is about 2/3 through the data collection process and we’ll be moving 

into analysis shortly. 
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And I would like you to talk a little bit about what we can expect in terms of 

comparison groups and ways of looking at data. 

Annie Georges: Yes. So what we’re hoping to do is actually compare our Senior Corps 

volunteers with a national sample just to benchmark and see how they are 

similar or different from a national sample of volunteers. And we have data 

from the health and retirement study which is national dataset that’s being 

housed at the University of Michigan that we are planning to use to actually 

benchmark the Senior Corps volunteers with a national sample of similar 

adults. 

Anthony Nerino: Thank you. 

Annie Georges: Yes. 

Mary Hyde: Annie, do you want to just read out your questions so that people see that 

we’re asking for a wide range of questions? 

Annie Georges: Yes. So some of the questions I have -- what surprised you about the 

findings? And also for the Senior Corps grantees or volunteers who might be 

on the line, do these results differ from your experience in the field? And I 

would like to hear from anyone any recommendations that you have to CNCS 

for further analysis with the data and what additional questions did these 

results raise that you would like to see CNCS address in future research. 

(Joseph Green): Okay (Sarah) do we have any questions in queue? 

Coordinator: We do have a couple questions that have come through. First, we have 

(Debbie Sanamar-Butler). Your line is now open. 
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(Debbie Sanamar-Butler): Good afternoon everyone. I appreciate you giving this conference. 

I’m alumni. I’ve served in several branches -- Vista, AmeriCorps, and (Lead 

Us) Program. I’m very interested about the Senior Corps because I see a lot 

of similarities in the scores of improvements of volunteer. It’s similar in the 

Senior Corps where things improve.

My interest is and my main question is I’m living in a rural area now. And 

there are not many opportunities where I am. My mother just retired. She’s 

very viable, very knowledgeable, has a lot to offer. There’s a group just like 

her here. I know the importance of what seniors can bring, being alumni. 

My question is what is the best way I could get a program like this in this rural 

farming community? Our seniors are just wasting away and they have so 

much to offer. Just being close to my mom, there’s so much more she can 

give. My interest is trying to get them involved, improving their health, 

giving them something to do and something that offers them and improves 

their health while doing it volunteering. Could you help me with that? 

Deborah Cox-Roush: We certainly can. First of all, this is Debbie. But I’m (unintelligible) my 

deputy as I told you in my earlier talk seven weeks in. I want to give you 

information. I know what I know, but there’s someone here who knows a lot 

more than I do that’s going to help actually talk about how you can get 

involved in these programs, and that’s my deputy Erin McGrath. 

Erin McGrath: Hi. Thanks for the question and your interest. So there are places where you 

can go to see if there’s already an existing Senior Corps program in your 

community. So Nationalservice.gov has a whole host of maps and ways to 

point you in the right direction. You can contact your state office if you prefer 

to use phone and talk to someone directly. That contact information for the 

corporation’s field offices are on the nationalservice.gov website. 
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And you will also be able to pull down a report called National Service in 

Your State. And so there’s a map there on our landing page and you’ll be able 

to go and pull down your state profile and be able to see which of the 

community organizations in your area are sponsoring a program. 

Beyond that, if you don’t see them on the list that means that really we’re sort 

of relying on additional appropriations to grow from where we are right now. 

So we have a fairly static footprint, but there are certainly opportunities I think 

for our existing grantees, our existing community based organizations to find 

new programming opportunities, new organizations to partner with.

So at this point, the answer is to really sort of work it retail -- figure out what 

is already existing in your community and then see if we can make some 

connections. Your state field office is really sort of the best. If you don’t see 

something there, they’re the best option to kind of talk through what else 

would be available. 

Mary Hyde: Thanks, Erin. 

(Debbie Sanamar-Butler): Okay. That’s my main question. I’ve been researching and there is 

nothing in this area so I’m looking to see about opening new enrollment. I 

talked to the little mayor up in town and they’re thinking about sponsoring 

something like that, something new. So what is the open enrollment to open 

programs? 

Erin McGrath: So for most Senior Corps programs, unless there’s a waiting list it’s sort of a 

rolling enrollment process. So unlike AmeriCorps, there’s not term limits on 

the Senior Corps positions. So if the...
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(Debbie Sanamar-Butler): Great.

Erin McGrath: ...program is operating and they have the funds to take on new volunteers, 

you could apply directly to the community based organization to be a Senior 

Corps volunteer. 

((Crosstalk))

(Debbie Sanamar-Butler): Great. Thank you so much. 

Erin McGrath: If you are curious about what’s there or what’s happening, definitely connect 

with I didn’t catch what state you were in, but the state field office - so the 

corporation has local field offices in states across the country is going to be 

able to help you navigate those things. 

(Debbie Sanamar-Butler): Thank you. It’s a rural part in Louisiana. I appreciate all of you guys’ 

help. 

Erin McGrath: Great. 

Mary Hyde: Thank you very much, ma’am. 

(Joseph Green): Thanks everyone. And I think we have a comment or question here in the 

room. 

(Jocelyn Sylphie): Hi. Thank you. I’m (Jocelyn Sylphie) with AARP Foundation. And we are 

actually running a similar study. We’re just kind of getting started looking at 

our tax aide, program volunteers, and our experience corps program 

volunteers and seeing if there are changes over time in self-reported health 

and mental status of well-being. 
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What we’re also interested in and just would love to hear some 

recommendations from this group or from Annie or Dawn about if frequency 

and amount of volunteer service -- sort of the dosage component -- what role 

that plays. And is there some threshold where it’s too much and it sort of 

leads to burnout for older adults? 

We have our state program. We have about 35,000 volunteers across the 

country doing, you know, preparing taxes for low income older adults and 

younger folks as well. And they work sometimes, you know, 40-50 hours a 

week during tax season. And we’re just kind of wondering like is there a 

threshold? Is there a plateau where the effects, you know, aren’t as positive? 

And I’m just wondering if there’s any insights that the researchers have about 

this or is the data that you collected for this longitudinal study could serve as 

some of that information? 

Dawn Carr: I’m happy to give my reaction to that question. Annie, would you like me to 

start?

Annie Georges: Yes. That would be great. Then I can speak about this specific study in terms 

of being able to tap into some of that. 

Dawn Carr: Excellent. So I think that what you’re asking is a really good question that 

quite frankly we don’t know the answer to. On the other hand, we have 

looked at this problem. I’ve done quite a bit of research myself with the data 

that we have available. And I’m not the only one. 

And many have come to the conclusion that somewhere in the vicinity of 

about two hours a week on average seems to provide kind of a plateau effect 

with many of the health benefits associated with volunteering. But I suspect 
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one of the challenges to those sort of findings is that this is not - every unique 

group has a different set of issues.

When you’re talking about full-time workers, I think it’s probably the case 

that you’re going to have to explore this more carefully because clearly doing 

too much can be problematic, you know. You want to sort of increase 

opportunities for good things to happen and not cause harm in the process. 

And I think that obviously overburdening full-time workers is not really the 

goal. On the other hand, certainly one hour a week has been shown to provide 

benefits to people of all types, including full-time workers. 

So that’s sort of my initial reaction to that. And of course, the programs that 

I’m sure Annie will talk to you about the results she has the results are more 

intensive volunteering. So those show different results, but again with 

different populations. Annie? 

Annie Georges: Yes. So the foster grandparent and senior companion are required to have a

minimum number of hours. And we do collect from the volunteer to tell us 

how many hours they’re volunteering in a particular week. So we’ll be able to 

do to tap into some of that analysis, but I’m not sure that this specific data will 

tell you about threshold because as Dawn just mentioned, this is an intensive 

kind of requirement -- more so than the average hours that a typical volunteer 

would do because they are required to do a certain minimum. 

But the data that’s being collected does have hours volunteering that some of 

that exploration can begin and probably would raise more questions than you 

will answers. But it’s one of the things that we talked about a lot actually is 

this dosage issue -- you know, how much of it can we start answering right 

now with the data that we have. 
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So we will definitely be looking at some questions for the report that we will 

finish up. 

(Jocelyn Sylphie): We would appreciate that, thank you. Beaus when you hear 15 to 40 hours a 

week, that’s quite, you know, you see a lot of differences...

((Crosstalk))

Dawn Carr: Yes. 

Coordinator: 

Annie Georges: Yes. 

(Jocelyn Sylphie): Do you know sort of definitively the number of hours or frequency 

(unintelligible) right?

Annie Georges: Yes. 

(Joseph Green): So I believe we are coming close to time. I think we have time maybe for one 

more question. (Sarah) do we have a question queued up on the phones? 

We do. It comes from (Jennifer Abernathy). Your line is open. 

(Jennifer Abernathy): Hi. This is (Jennifer Abernathy) and I’m with the Tennessee Respite 

Coalition. And first of all, I just want to commend the corporation and Senior 

Corps for taking on the research to actually look at the benefits of respite for 

family caregivers. There is not much research out there in that regard -- the 

effect of respite on caregivers -- so I’m very happy to hear those results. I’m 

looking forward to seeing the results to the other factors that you measured. 
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And my recommendation would be anything more you can glean from that 

would be helpful to us as a respite provider as well as I know nationwide 

there’s other coalitions like we are that focus on respite that would love to 

have any data in that regard. 

Woman: Great. 

(Joseph Green): Yes. So it looks like we actually have time for yet another question. Do we 

have any further questions queued up on the phone?

Coordinator: We have one other question. Your line is now open.

(Joseph Green): Great. 

Coordinator: If you pressed star 1 for a question, your line is now open.

(Maria): Hello. My name is (Maria) and I’m from the city of Albuquerque Department 

of Senior Affairs. I wanted to say that as a Senior Corps grantee, I am not 

surprised about the findings. It’s something that we’ve seen in the field for 

years. And I chimed in with a recommendation for CNCS and also a question 

for CNCS. 

My recommendation is to see if this study and data can please be shred 

through the healthcare field and healthcare communities so that perchance the 

local health departments could learn more about Senior Corps and be a 

referral resource for local grantees to help in recruitment. 

And then if medical professionals were aware of these health benefits in 

Senior Corps, perhaps they could prescribe, you know, better health to their 

senior patients to get engaged. 
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Woman: Great. Good recommendation.

(Maria): Next, my question is whether or not CNCS sees after this study the possibility 

of grantees building workplans in the healthy futures focus area to measure 

and demonstrate outcomes of our senior participants? 

Erin McGrath: Hi, (Maria). This is Erin. How are you? A couple things -- again, as Mary 

said, I appreciate your recommendation. I think we’re really excited. Again, 

this is really just a preliminary finding. And so once we have the full package 

of the full report, I think we’re going to be looking for audiences to share this 

with. And I appreciate your recommendation. 

In terms of what this means for our programming, you know, as we sort of 

continue through our own transition as now Debbie is here as the Director, I 

think there will be an opportunity agency-wide to begin to look at 

performance measures and how we talk about national service programs and 

how we measure them. And I do, you know, think that this is part of that 

discussion. 

So I appreciate your (unintelligible) and I think that is on top of mind for all of 

us. 

(Joseph Green): Great. Well, thank you everyone. We are now two after two. So I know that 

everyone probably has a busy day, many things to get back to. 

One thing I think we wanted to note before signing off is that official interim 

report that we spoke of today will actually be released sometime in August I 

believe. And so the link that was provided in the invite where you can find 

other media materials about this is also where you can get the report once it 
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shows up. If you signed up for this webinar, you will get a notification when 

the report does go out so please stay tuned. 

And also please feel free to get in touch with us here at CNCS as well as 

information for contacting the researchers directly is also on the screen as 

well. we really appreciate JBS, Dawn taking part as well as leadership here at 

CNCS for the support of this study. And we look forward to some great 

things in the future. Thanks everyone. 

Man: Thank you. 

Mary Hyde: Thank you. 

Woman: Thank you. 

Coordinator: That does conclude today’s conference. Thank you all for participating. You 

may disconnect your lines at this time. 

END