October 11, 2001
Eldercare workshop helps adult children cope
By Steve Hill
University Week
Jody Burns was faced with what’s becoming an increasingly common problem – how to care for an aging parent.
She turned to an eldercare workshop sponsored by the UW Retirement Center, the Work/Life Office, and the Benefits Office for guidance. And Burns isn’t alone. The popularity of the series is undeniable.
After beginning with some lunchtime seminars designed to help children of aging parents, Retirement Center Director Pat Dougherty said it quickly became clear that one hour over a sandwich and potato chips wasn’t enough. So for the second straight year the UW is offering a more in-depth series of workshops, this time on four different occasions.
The first series will run on three consecutive Tuesdays on the Seattle campus. Those sessions will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 23, Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. No specific dates have been set for the other workshop series, but there will be one more on the Seattle campus during the spring quarter. One for the winter quarter is planned in Tacoma and another spring-quarter series is planned in Bothell.
“It was and is clearly an important need on campus,” Dougherty said, reflecting on peoples’ reactions to the series. “We were drawing doctors, faculty, professional staff and classified staff. We were drawing everybody across the board.”
Burns attended the more in-depth series of workshops last year. Her goal was to get some guidance for how to provide care for her 86-year-old mother who suffers from congestive heart disease. Specifically she wanted to familiarize herself with assisted living and nursing home opportunities and the kinds of regulations that exist in the state.
The workshop provided those answers and more.
“The biggest benefit (of attending the workshop),” she recalled recently, “was that it allowed me and encouraged me to think a little more clearly through not only what I wanted for my mother, but also what I wanted for myself. I think those are really good outcomes.”
Liz Taylor, who will lead the workshops, is a consumer education advocate in the field of aging. She said that Burns’ reaction to last year’s workshop is exactly the point. She wants attendees to become smart consumers about the options available. That means she wants them to plan ahead.
“It’s something nobody thinks about until there’s a crisis,” Taylor said. “Almost nothing in life prepares adult children to care for their aging parents. As a result, most do nothing until a health-care crisis hits. Then, when time is short and emotions are high, they often make poorly informed choices.”
That’s dramatically different from how consumers normally behave. Taylor compares it to buying a car, for example.
“If you’re going to go out and spend $40,000 on a new car, most consumers do a fairly good job of studying the market and all their options,” she said. “I want people to start using those techniques in choosing care for a parent and in thinking about it for themselves.”
Part one of the series highlights the need for eldercare, the services and financial options available, and covers care assessment and legal issues. Part two helps attendees develop a model for decision making and navigating the long-term care system. Topics include developing a service list, what questions to ask, how to evaluate answers, determining quality, and where to turn for more information. Part three covers some of the most difficult issues, including coping with the strains presented by resistant elders, longtime family patterns, and the often unfair burdens placed on caregivers.
In conjunction with the workshops the Work/Life Office and Retirement Center are planning to have an eldercare referral support system up and running by mid-November. Both offices currently have contact information for a number of eldercare resources.
The workshop costs $60 per person and is limited to 50 people per workshop. Supervisors are encouraged to give employees release time to attend. A registration form can be downloaded at http://depts.washington.edu/retiremt/center/pages/ecoverview.html. Questions about the eldercare workshops should be directed to the Retirement Center at 206-543-8600.
