Service-Learning OpportunitiesAt — CAREGIVERS: Volunteers Assisting the Elderly

Spring 2022- Assist in the strategic planning and development of a national task force for the 40th Anniversary of the National Volunteer Caregiving Network. Students will have the opportunity to work alongside of Stacy Millers Public Affairs on this project. Can be done remotely with a flexible schedule. 

1) Students can produce a cost analysis between the difference of volunteer caregiving vs. professional care, specifically as it relates to hospital care transitions and recidivism
2) Students can document the lives and stories of senior citizens on short you-tube videos or
3) Develop an outreach program that focuses on safety in the home/ fall prevention, end of life wishes you may want to consider, or have a conversation about nutrition or dental hygiene
4) Senior Survey/Focus Group--Dr. Leslie Abell had previously helped us develop a volunteer survey, and we had discussed developing a senior focus group as a better means of collecting feedback.
5) Economic Solutions-- We'd like to develop a program and approach for working with homebound seniors who have limited resources. The first challenge is to assess their situation, and the second is to identify and assist the senior in refining their situation. The basis for this is in a program through the National Council on Aging, and we also believe we can connect with our local Area Agency on Aging's HICAP program.
6) Photo Archive and History Project--Dr. Nancy Chen helped us get this off the ground, but we need to make some additional headway in completing the set-up and involve and promote this to our volunteer base.
7) Building Bridges Intergenerational Program--We are looking for ways to replicate this program. Currently, we send a team of high school students out with our Program Coordinator to do light household chores for seniors (e.g., laundry, changing the bed, and the social component cannot be overstated). Local service clubs (e.g., Kiwanis and Rotary) could connect with college students through, for example, Rotary's college-level Rotaract, allowing CAREGIVERS to establish teams of students throughout the county.
8) Building Bridges Training Program--We have a training program called "Walking in Their Shoes" that we use in our orientation with our high school students. The training program needs to be updated and structured, perhaps even with an "online" component that would allow the students to revisit it throughout the semester. It would be nice to incorporate the survey function (created last year by CSUCI students) to capture impressions at the beginning and end of the school year.
9) Nutrition and diet program--We are looking for people interested in cooking delicious and nutritious meals for seniors at their homes according to their diets.

CAREGIVERS: Volunteers Assisting the Elderly is also interested in working directly with faculty from varied disciplines to build service-learning projects that support learning course outcomes.

CAREGIVERS: Is looking for a student who can proofread documents in Spanish. This would be a one-day project, so not a service-learning project but a potential experience.