On any given day in Blaine County, 100 to 200 senior citizens get help from the Senior Connection on Third Avenue in Hailey. The privately funded organization provides Meals-on-Wheels, in-home elder care, transportation services and excursions to Jackpot, Nev., and elsewhere.
The Senior Connection has a sliding payment scale so no one is turned away for lack of money. Yet caring for the elderly is a specialized activity that can put stress on family members and professional caregivers alike.
Thanks to a $2,000 grant from the Idaho Community Foundation, the Senior Connection will provide a caregiver education program this spring aimed at training anyone charged with taking care of the elderly or disabled.
Holly Motes, spokeswoman for the Idaho Community Foundation, said the Senior Connection applied for the grant to purchase training resource materials so that the 12 full-time caregiver staff members could receive up-to-date training.
"The foundation saw the need and felt that this was a worthwhile project," she said.
Kimberly Coonis, Senior Connection executive director, said the books, DVDs and instructional manuals bought with the grant money will be used during nine-week courses beginning in April. Cost of the training will be $35.
"Seventy percent of caregivers across the board are family members," Coonis said. "It is a challenging job. Our goal at the Senior Connection is to keep people in their homes for as long as it is safe and for as long as they want to be there."
Coonis said the training will provide instruction on personal care, including infection control, nutrition and medication management.
"There will also be instruction on how to take of yourself as a caregiver, so as not to create friction within families," she said.
Last year the Senior Connection spent $700,000 taking care of the elderly in Blaine County. Only $35,000 came from state funding.
"We get most of our budget from the donations of very generous people," Coonis said. "If not for them, we would not be here."
For more information or to get on the list for the caregiver training program, call the Senior Connection at 788-3468.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
Alba Arndt, age 98, and Ann Wilson, age 95, (from left, front row) are provided in-home care by Senior Connection caregivers Rosemary Hollis and Hazel Mountain (from left, back row).
Photo by David N. Seelig
