The Rockingham County senior community assessment : an action-oriented community diagnosis ; findings and next steps of action
Creators: name: Kravitz, Andi
name: Ziarnowski, Karen
name: Davis, Whitney
name: Nielsen, Christine
name: Squillace, Carol
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2007

description: The Rockingham County Senior Community Assessment project was conducted from October of 2006 through April of 2007 by a five-member student team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. The student team worked under the guidance of two preceptors, Brittan Williams, MPH, CHES, of the Rockingham County Department of Public Health, and Debbie Mason, BS, CHES, of Rockingham County Healthy Carolinians. The Rockingham County Senior Community Assessment (RCSCA) was conducted using a health education tool known as Action-Oriented Community Diagnosis (AOCD). The AOCD process addresses a wide variety of factors in the community that contribute to health, such as social and economic factors as well as community dynamics, with the goal of generating community-owned action steps for positive change. This report presents a synthesis of the multiple steps taken in completion of the RCSCA, beginning with collection and analysis of secondary data that provided an overview of what life was like for seniors in the community. Getting to know the community, or “gaining entrée” to the community itself, was an ongoing process that began with a county tour and continued with team attendance at important community meetings and events. The team also collected primary data through interviews and focus groups with 17 local service providers and 21 community members, who possessed a broad knowledge of community functioning. From this data, the team identified four community strengths and ten community challenges. The strengths were family and senior relationships, religion, caring community, and an abundance of resources available for seniors. The challenges, listed below as theme, or summary, statements, included awareness of services, Alzheimer’s and dementia, transportation, the insurance gap, and streamlining services. Following the analysis of all collected data, the findings were presented to the community through the Rockingham County Senior Community Forum, held on April 20, 2007. Topics explored in-depth were based on identified challenges. The forum marked the end of the student team’s work in Rockingham County and was primarily intended to transfer ownership of findings to the community. Specific action steps for change were generated through a discussion of important themes selected by the Forum Planning Committee: Theme 1: Seniors are often unaware of the services and events that are available to them throughout the county. Action Steps: Initiate a letter writing campaign, working with the Council on Aging and potentially the News and Record, to help make the needs and desires of seniors known. Contact Home Health Care and Caregivers of Rockingham County as a way of spreading awareness to homebound seniors. Contact ministerial groups of Eden and Reidsville to investigate working with church groups to increase service awareness. Theme 2: Although the county offers some mental health services, adequate care does not exist for the growing concerns surrounding Alzheimer’s and dementia among seniors and support for their families. Action Steps: Heavily advertise an upcoming information session at the Carolina House of Reidsville for those affected by and those interested in learning more about Alzheimer’s. Acquire a list of county services and distribute at nutrition sites and senior events, specifically the Senior Games, to educate Rockingham County community members about the services that are currently offered in the county for seniors. Theme 3: Given Rockingham County’s geographic layout and the shortage of consistent, low cost transportation, seniors have difficulty using transportation to access services and activities. Action Steps: Include information on available transportation options/rates for seniors from Council on Aging transportation services in the next Center for Active Retirement newsletter. Attend and present information about available transportation options at upcoming meetings with both the Service Providers Network and the Rockingham County Planning Meeting for Services to the Elderly. Call WLOE about a potential radio spot to discuss transportation. Investigate potential advertising options for transportation services in local utility bills. Contact local newspapers and churches to post transportation information in their bulletins. Help create flyers to be distributed to advertise Council on Aging transportation services. Contact the Council on Aging to get information on their transportation services and to discuss collaboration options. Theme 4: Due to age and income restrictions for current health insurance options, seniors may fall into a gap where they do not have sufficient health insurance to cover medical costs. Action Steps: Take this theme to the Rockingham Senior Service Providers meeting. Create a resource guide focusing on insurance issues and advice for seniors. Distribute resource guide at churches, physician’s offices, Meals on Wheels, pharmacies, and through home health services. Create a resource team to present information about resources at local organizations such as churches, Meals on Wheels, pharmacies, and home health services. Vote for candidates who want to address the insurance gap. Theme 5: While many service providers work together efficiently and productively, communication and service delivery is not always streamlined. Action Steps: Contact Region G Agency on Aging to host an online resource. Look into creating a free Rockingham community page, network, and bulletin board online. Create a list of resources that promote, advertise, and publicize events for seniors. Create a senior newspaper. Secure funding for the senior newspaper. Based on the process as a whole, the team makes the following recommendations for future work in the Rockingham County senior community: The term “senior” may include individuals younger than 65, and care should be taken to recognize that some members of the county who are not 65 or older identify themselves as members of the senior community. County demographics are changing, and attention should be paid to the senior members of different ethnic groups, especially the Latino population. Future work with seniors should include a focus on isolated and homebound seniors. Given the number of existing quality services for seniors in the county, efforts should include building upon what is already available. Service providers and community members should place increasing awareness of services and events at the forefront of all efforts. Use of multiple communication methods, including direct mail, the Internet, and radio, will be an important component of raising senior awareness in the future and should be considered in service and health promotion efforts. Grassroots networking among seniors, with the purpose of sharing resources, should be recognized and increased, utilizing the informal ties that already exist. Religion is an important component of life, and church networks should be investigated as a channel for improving life for seniors. Broader participation in the county’s existing senior service provider groups/networks should be encouraged, making coordination key. Collaboration on developed action steps will be crucial in moving towards their successful implementation, especially given the overlap in many of the steps that were developed. This document is intended to be a working document, one that will provide the senior community and senior service providers with a foundation from which to move forward into the future. Background summary, methods used in the RCSCA, detailed findings from the primary data, and a discussion of the forum and resulting action steps are offered in the following pages. The team presents the report with the hope that positive change can be made for the kind, generous, and thoughtful senior residents of Rockingham County and those who work tirelessly to enrich and improve their lives.