Senior Spotlight

By John Toscano
DFTA Offers Job Training For Serving Homebound Elderly

A new program which offers training for jobs in the care of the chronically ill and homebound elderly was recently unveiled by the city Department for the Aging (DFTA).

Personal Care Aide (PCA) program graduates generally begin working right away. A DFTA news release stated that positions await those who complete the 11-week course at numerous home health care agencies throughout the city.

The PCA program, which usually averages a 90 percent or higher placement rate for its graduates, achieved a remarkable 100 percent placement for a recent class.

DFTA Commissioner Edwin Mendez-Santiago commended the new PCA workers on their achievement, stating:

"You are embarking on a career of good deeds on behalf of the elderly of New York City. You will face many challenges in your efforts to help senior citizens enjoy a better quality of life. But because of your efforts, senior citizens will be able to avoid institutionalization and stay at home where they want to be."

The PCA program includes both classroom and hands-on training in the care of the chronically ill and homebound elderly. At the department’s Lower Manhattan Workforce I Career Center Affiliate, more than a dozen Chinese- and Hispanic-Americans were among those in a recent graduating class.

Workforce I offers many services beside the PCA program. There are workshops on skills to enhance marketability, such as interviewing and resume preparation, resource rooms equipped with computers, internet access and job search engines and job placement services with a pool of more than 70 potential employees.

In addition to immigrants and low-income individuals, the Lower Manhattan Workforce Center also targets services for city residents 55 years of age or older with low to moderate incomes. Nearly 700 individuals have been served since the center opened in October 2003.

For more information about the PCA program and DFTA’s Workforce 1 Career Center Affiliate, located at 220 Church St. in Lower Manhattan, call 311 or visit http://nyc.gov/html/dfta/html/employ/html.

MORE VOLS NEEDED: The Community Service Society Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) has a Prejudice Reduction Project which it says works very well.

Volunteers in the program help elementary school children learn to get along. Teams of volunteers age 55 and over visit local elementary schools for three to four hours, one day a week, for a total of five weeks. Through activities that include reading stories and performing puppet shows, the volunteers help the students learn that "It is what’s on the inside of a person (their character and feelings) that counts."

According to an RSVP spokesperson, teachers have reported that the students continue to discuss what they have learned from the volunteers and interact respectfully with others long after they have completed the program.

Jay Katz, a volunteer, put it this way: "To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, children need to learn that one should judge others not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

RSVP is looking for more senior volunteers for the Prejudice Reduction Program. To make a difference in how future generations interact in New York City, call Project Director Tami Di Costanzo at 212-614-5536 to register for the next information session in Queens. Training will be provided.

COHEN, KATZ SENIOR SHOPPING BUS: In the wake of the closing of the Key Food supermarket on Metropolitan Avenue, Councilmember Melinda Katz (D) and Assemblymember Michael Cohen (D), both of Forest Hills, are sponsoring a senior shopping bus.

The lawmakers were approached, they said, by Rabbi Richard Levy of the Middle Village Adult Center, who offered the use of his center’s senior bus to shuttle area seniors to a local supermarket.

The bus will pick up seniors 60 years of age or older at Cohen’s office, 98-08 Metropolitan Ave. and take them to Pathmark on Atlantic Avenue for approximately an hour. The passengers will then be returned directly to their homes.

Pickups, which began last Friday, will be made at 9:30 a.m. every Friday morning. The bus seats 16, so seniors are urged to telephone Cohen’s office at 718-263-5595 to make reservations.

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