Power to Change: Creative Aging Symposium was a one-day virtual
event hosted by Senior Center Without Walls (SCWW) and Creative Aging San Francisco:
“Elders are looking for
ways to have their voices heard, to create change in their lives, and the lives
of others…
Whether you think of
yourself as creative or not, we will give tools to unlock the creative promise
we all carry… creativity is beyond art-making – it is about using your
imagination to forge new paths. This symposium will share inspiring stories and
creative tools to ignite changes from the very personal level of communicating
one’s story all the way to addressing policy-makers.”
This online Symposium, accessible via computer or phone, included
15-minute breaks for reflection between presentations and a 75-minute lunch break.
Fred Mandell, Ph.D., co-author
of Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage in Life (2010), talked about risk-taking in his creative transition. Leaving the familiarity of a 21-year career
in financial services, Fred explored the unknown when he enrolled in a
sculpture class as he had not taken an art class since 7th
grade. Three years into studying
sculpture, he had a one-man show to sell his art and then took up painting; his
artworks are sold online. His reflections: “Do and learn at
the same time …Build skills through failure in workshops …Find a community of
support …develop a new network (tribe) that will be a source of encouragement
and resilience … passion will sustain growth and discovery.” He recommended journaling that helps reflect
on our state of mind and heart, opportunities and disappointments.
In 2014, Fred founded Global Institute for Arts and Leadership,
a nonprofit that uses arts-based learning for innovative leadership and social
impact. Fred explained art’s value in problem-solving by providing divergent, expansive
ways of looking/thinking and a communal experience to make and share art that
will elicit a response and dialogue that is less threatening than politics—a
fixed mindset can be challenged with art that connects what’s deep inside us
and to the world.
According to Fred’s book, here are the
7 creative skills to reinvent yourself:
- Preparation: Deliberately engaging in activities that help break us from our usual patterns of thought and feeling, and prepare us for creative insight.
- Seeing: Discerning new connections, fresh perspectives and possibilities.
- Using context: Understanding how varied environments in which we live and work influence our thoughts and behaviors, and then using this knowledge to make changes in our lives.
- Embracing uncertainty: Acting on opportunities, sometimes hidden, presented by change and uncertainty.
- Risk taking: Acting without certainty of outcome.
- Discipline: Acting consistently, regardless of motivation.
- Collaboration: Engaging with others to help one make desired changes.
- Time Slips creative storytelling project (Anne Basting's “forget memory, try imagination”) with people with dementia, using photo image, facilitator, echoer, and scribe. This experience enabled member Emily to be more comfortable with memory loss, after realizing that memory goes, but lots left—creativity, imagination and fun remain.
- Playback Theater with Ed Bernstein and Sarah Strong, learning that improv is about trusting inner guidance; using roles of conductor (like to add anything?), teller (new perspective on life story), and actor.
After lunch break, enjoyed 15 minutes of
Poetry Reading by Gregory Pond, who has published two books of
poetry, Blackened Blue and after
moon. We were nostalgic or looking forward to our next meal as he read home
cookin’:
back burner glows
slow slimmer on
crock pot watch
heated up then
turned down low
to slightly bubbling
babbling brook…
rich thick steam rising
and mixing above
with
the good home aroma
of spices
and love.
David “Lucky” Goff, Ph.D.,
author of The Evolving Elder: Applying What Really Matters to Life (2017) and community organizer, talked about surviving a hemorrhagic stroke in 2003 and
experiencing a “traumatic blessing.”
After his stroke left him permanently disabled, he lost his marriage,
home, and career in psychotherapy. He started
writing a journal, Reports from the Slow Lane (now blog),
to exorcise his regrets, re-learned to speak so he has been on Growing an Elder Culture radio show for past 6 years now, and co-founded Elders Salon in Sebastopol. Lucky said he has been living
creatively as a social artist because of his hardships, and his experience with
disability has meant moving to a slower pace so he can notice what’s going on, rather
than miss a lot while speeding through life.
Postcards with a Punch workshop demonstrated
how writing your legislators does make a difference and provided tips on how to
make our letters stand out.
- Shirley Krohn of California Senior Legislature discussed Meals on Wheels’ “Don’t Empty My Plate” campaign that involved seniors writing their personal stories (“If it wasn’t for Meals on Wheels, I would starve”) on paper plates for visual impact and sent to Congress.
- Jessica McCracken of Ruth’s Table suggested ways to get informed on policy issues (American Society on Aging, Leading Age, Americans for the Arts), and then showed how to create a collage from magazine clippings, using glue stick, on a 3”x5” postcard with message—"AGING massive power JUST BEAUTIFUL" or song lyrics/poems that touch the soul.
After the polarizing 2016 election, Cindy Weil left her
wallpaper business to follow her impulse to be part of something bigger and
found Enactivist. She launched the Immigrant Yarn Project, involving
seniors and Girls Scouts in piecing together a yarn-based creation (knit
squares, pom-poms) representing our common immigrant roots for a massive public
art, open-air installation at Fort Point this fall.
SCWW Program Manager Katie Wade (pictured above at left) concluded the symposium, noting the mosaic Power to Change logo of the butterfly symbolizing transformation, reflection and exploration of our creativity as a tool for change within ourselves and our community.
SCWW Program Manager Katie Wade (pictured above at left) concluded the symposium, noting the mosaic Power to Change logo of the butterfly symbolizing transformation, reflection and exploration of our creativity as a tool for change within ourselves and our community.
Art-making
Rhoda Goldman Plaza (RGP) Assisted Living residents learned step-by-step Portrait Painting taught by Mike Ritch of Jean Henry School of Art (pictured with model Amy Hittner,
Board member of Legacy Film Festival on Aging and former Chair of SFSU
Counseling Department).
RGP’s
Annual Resident Art Show + Reception with
strolling violinist Seth Byrd, featured origami by Hedy, paintings by Roberta,
and mixed collage/painting by Shelly.
Metal sculptures by
Barry
Upcycled art by
Freda
Power of Resilience
This month’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration at
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts featured a screening of the documentary, “Resilience:The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope”,
followed by journalist Belva Davis moderating a discussion with panelists: James
Redford (filmmaker), Claire Willhite (Center for Youth Wellness), Lyslynn Lacoste (Bayview-Hunters Point Mobilization for Adolescent Growth in
our Communities) and Lauran Cherry (Alameda Department of Education).
The
documentary explored the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE, such as
abuse, neglect, household dysfunction) on adult health and behaviors, and adopting a resilience-oriented approach to trauma-informed care. According to
the ACE study, chronic inflammation due to toxic stress in childhood can lead to changes in brain
development and body systems. Resilience is built over time, so universal
screening and interventions (presence of a stable, caring adult; therapy;
mindfulness; nutrition; exercise) are key.
FDR Democratic Club
hosted a community conversation on Disaster
Preparedness for Seniors and People with Disabilities (PWD) at Lighthouse
for the Blind and Visually Impaired. We
viewed Rooted in Rights’ “Right to be Rescued,” a short documentary that tells the stories of PWD affected
by Hurricane Katrina. In times of disaster (hurricanes, wildfires, severe weather, etc.), older adults and PWD are vulnerable due to special needs and tend to be
overlooked. In “The Right to be Rescued: Disability Justice in an Age of Disaster," Adrien Weibgen argued for the right of PWD to receive emergency services,
including their input in emergency planning.
“…the
systemic exclusion of PWDs from disaster plans, coupled with arguments that it
may be impossible to meet the needs of all people during times of disaster,
suggests a widespread, if tacit, endorsement of the notion that it is fine to
value lives differently when push comes to shove…Rather than accept as
inevitable that some people will be left behind, we must significantly increase
our overall level of commitment to managing emergency events.”
We heard from local
and state officials on disaster preparedness:
Daniel Homsey, Director of Neighborhood Resilience, visited New Orleans 10 years ago in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which he called a “social justice disaster." Each of us can asset map, prepare Recology disaster kit, get Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training by SF Fire Department, and know our community (get connected to AlertSF to receive real-time emergency alerts by texting your zip code to 888-777). After noting that 70% of the City’s first responders do not live in the City, Daniel talked about building community resilience through grassroots Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN)’s Empowered Communities Program (ECP). He encouraged us to build “who’s in kit” (social capital) through relationships in the community to kick-off a social contract of caring and problem-solving; for example, Resilient Miraloma Park neighbors staged an off-the-grid block party to practice their safety responses using emergency radios for communications and solar generators for cooking. Daniel explained that the City promotes Neighborfests as community building tools through incentives by removing fees, providing free barricades and training for organizing block parties for neighbors: how to form teams, implement a plan and feed one another – frequent practice uses muscle memory to respond in a real emergency.
Vance Taylor, Chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, joined the meeting via Skype. Vance is responsible for ensuring the needs of individuals with disabilities and persons with access and functional needs are identified before, during and after a disaster.
Daniel Homsey, Director of Neighborhood Resilience, visited New Orleans 10 years ago in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which he called a “social justice disaster." Each of us can asset map, prepare Recology disaster kit, get Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training by SF Fire Department, and know our community (get connected to AlertSF to receive real-time emergency alerts by texting your zip code to 888-777). After noting that 70% of the City’s first responders do not live in the City, Daniel talked about building community resilience through grassroots Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN)’s Empowered Communities Program (ECP). He encouraged us to build “who’s in kit” (social capital) through relationships in the community to kick-off a social contract of caring and problem-solving; for example, Resilient Miraloma Park neighbors staged an off-the-grid block party to practice their safety responses using emergency radios for communications and solar generators for cooking. Daniel explained that the City promotes Neighborfests as community building tools through incentives by removing fees, providing free barricades and training for organizing block parties for neighbors: how to form teams, implement a plan and feed one another – frequent practice uses muscle memory to respond in a real emergency.
Vance Taylor, Chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, joined the meeting via Skype. Vance is responsible for ensuring the needs of individuals with disabilities and persons with access and functional needs are identified before, during and after a disaster.
Event included
resource tables by nonprofit and government organizations:
- Independent Living Resource Center SF (Fiona Hinze, Systems Change Coordinator/Community Organizer): “Prepare to Prosper: The Positive Way to Prepare for Emergencies” video focuses on building resilience--1) think ahead (preparedness is for everyday life), 2) communicate in different ways, and 3) mobilize assets (make environment safe).
- Community Living Campaign (Marie Jobling, Executive Director): builds neighborhood networks of support—turning strangers into neighbors, and neighbors into friends
- SF Department of Emergency Management (Lisa Starliper, Emergency Planning Manager): sign up for public alerts and check out resources at https://www.sf72.org/
- Joanna Fraguli, Deputy Director of Programmatic Access at Mayor’s Office on Disability: Disability Disaster Preparedness Committee (DDPC) meets every other month to identify policy needs and propose concrete recommendations.
California fire: If you stay, you’re dead. How a Paradise nursing home evacuated
ReplyDeleteBy MARIA L. LA GANGA
NOV 17, 2018
How do you evacuate a nursing home when the deadliest wildfire in California history is bearing down and there are 91 men and women to move to safety — patients in need of walkers or wheelchairs or confined to hospital beds, suffering from dementia, recovering from strokes?
The fire is coming fast. Help is not.
Staying at the Cypress Meadows Post-Acute center in Paradise is not an option. Sheltering in place means certain death for the 30 or so staff members on hand and the patients who rely on them. A fleet of vans that might have helped ferry them to safety has been turned back because of the danger.
Sheila Craft, director of admissions and marketing at Cypress Meadows, has to find 91 beds within driving distance of this small town in the Sierra foothills. And she has to find them now.
On a typical day, there are waiting lists to get a bed at a skilled nursing home or memory care center or assisted living facility. This is not a typical day.
The fire starts about 6:30 a.m. Nov. 8, about eight miles of rugged terrain away from the nursing home.
…at 8 a.m., Cypress Meadows is “in full evacuation mode,” a process that is fraught even for the able-bodied gathering their own things and their own loved ones and leaving their own homes under their own steam.
The fire is growing.
The medical records director bags each patient’s documents, paperwork that describes who they are, how to reach their next of kin, what drugs they should take, the care they will want when they are dying. A medication nurse bags each one’s drugs. A certified nursing assistant puts together a change of clothes.
Patients are dressed and seated in wheelchairs. Bags with their drugs and clothes and paperwork are tied to the chair handles.
“We pulled them out of the rooms,” said Drummond, Cypress Meadows’ director of social services. “Our plan was to get the rooms emptied and close the door. Once the door was closed, we knew there was no resident in there.”
That way, no one would be left behind as flames licked the rafters and made their way through the nursing home’s wings.
The first 40 patients, the most ambulatory and easiest to move, head out about 9:30 a.m. Then comes an order to shelter in place. Patients who had been queued up in wheelchairs outside are rolled back into the dining area, away from the growing toxic smoke.
Just before 10 a.m., Drummond said, authorities arrive and say, “You gotta go.” Staff members line up their cars to ferry patients out. The wheelchairs are abandoned.
Drummond helps her daughter, Sarah, a dietary technician at the home, load two patients into her Ford Focus…
Craft pulls her white Chevrolet Suburban to the Cypress Meadows entrance. She’s not a nurse, so she will be driving patients who do not need complicated care. Two women and a man — one stroke victim, two with Alzheimer’s disease.
They are headed to Roseleaf, a memory care facility in Chico, about 16 miles away, a 30-minute drive when the world’s not ablaze. On this day, it will take nearly seven hours..
…A week passes. All 91 patients have been resettled. Four are now with family, the rest spread among 15 nursing homes and two hospitals…
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-nursing-home-fire-evac-20181117-story.html
The biggest loss in Paradise? Its elders
ReplyDeleteDozens of seniors are dead and hundreds are missing. How do we better protect this vulnerable population from future natural disasters?
Nuala Sawyer
Tue Nov 20th, 2018 4:28pm
…Last week, the Camp Fire decimated the towns of Paradise and Magalia. It was the perfect storm of bad luck: a fast-moving, blisteringly hot fire that devoured 80 acres a minute, a town with only two main roads out, and the collapse of communication systems as the wind and flames took down power lines.
…The media likes to refer to Paradise as a retirement community. Tucked into the woods 25 minutes outside of Chico, it’s a refuge from city living, but still has the amenities of a town. Before the fire, there were supermarkets, auto-repair shops, diners, and antique shops. Houses were cheap, it was quiet, and people knew each other. It wasn’t a place people went to die, but to live.
Nevertheless the town of 26,000 drew an older crowd; the median age was 50, much higher than California’s 36. There were 15 residential senior homes in 18 square miles, and 25 percent of the city’s residents were over age 65. But as any resident will point out, it had a vibrant young population, as people in their 20s and 30s moved in to take advantage of the inexpensive real estate.
After the fire, its members of that older 25 percent of the population who remain largely unaccounted for. The Butte County Sheriff Department’s first missing-persons list — released six days after the fire — had 99 people on it. Of those, 87 were over 65. Last weekend, the list grew to more than a thousand, and on Sunday, more than 200 of the 400 or so people with ages attached to their name were seniors.
Carole Masson, 68, was one of the many seniors who chose to call Paradise home…brainstorming ways to better evacuate vulnerable populations in the next disaster.
The main problem with the Camp Fire, she says, is that PG&E warned people they were going to turn off the power in the days leading up to it. When it did go out, it was because the fire blew out the transformers and knocked down power lines, but many residents thought it was simply their energy company taking precautions. As landlines are digital now, the minute the power goes down so do the house phones, destroying communication for those who don’t own cell phones.
…The Butte County sheriff’s office says it did send notifications about the fire — albeit by email, phone, and text messages. But even those with access to modern methods of communication scrambled to evacuate.
“I’ve heard stories where some of the nursing homes could only get out so many, and they had to leave the people they couldn’t get out,” Masson says.
That appears to be true for some. Missing-persons signs posted on bulletin boards outside evacuation centers include several former residents of Feather Canyon Gracious Retirement Living, and an L.A. Times article described a harrowing evacuation of seniors from Cypress Meadows Post-Acute center, many of whom escaped in the back of staff’s cars.
…Atria’s staff were well-prepared for an evacuation. They started packing bags Wednesday night after officials warned that fire conditions were dangerous, a key protocol from their evacuation training earlier that fall. The national chain has 225 senior-living facilities nationwide, and over the last 20 years, the company has developed a solid plan of escape for residents.
…Atria’s staff and residents made it out, despite the speed of the fire. On Thursday morning, shuttles picked up the 67 residents and transported them to a hotel in Sacramento, where staff waited to receive them. By Monday, 10 days after the fire destroyed their home, all 67 had found permanent beds in other Atria facilities across Northern California…
http://www.sfweekly.com/topstories/the-biggest-loss-in-paradise-its-elders/
The Paradise Wildfire's Harm to Senior Citizens
ReplyDeleteElderly refugees often need more support, especially with chronic conditions and infections that incubate and spread in close quarters.
By Kaiser Health News Nov. 20, 2018
CHICO, CALIF. — AFTER barely getting out of Paradise alive before the Camp Fire turned her town to ash, Patty Saunders, 89, now spends her days and nights in a reclining chair inside the shelter at East Ave Church 16 miles away.…"Never in my life did I think I would end up in a situation like this, but when it's time to go, you got to go," Saunders said…
Most of the fire victims here are older folks like her. They rest on cots, inflatable beds and recliners in a pop-up community of nearly 200 evacuees displaced by the Camp Fire and an army of volunteers.
The Camp Fire, the deadliest in state history, took ruthless aim at older people. Paradise, the Northern California town erased by fire, was largely a retirement community, with a quarter of the population 65 and older. The fire's death toll was 77 at last count, and nearly 1,000 people were still unaccounted for — most of them seniors. The sheriff's list of the missing includes many in their 70s and 80s.
Like everyone else in the wildfire's path, older people fled swiftly, if they escaped at all, often leaving behind medications, wheelchairs, walkers and essential medical equipment.
Altogether, around 50,000 people are thought to have evacuated, now staying in motels, cars, shelters and a makeshift camp at Walmart in Chico. But the elderly refugees often need more support, especially with chronic conditions and infections that incubate and spread in close quarters. Some need dialysis but can't get it. Others have respiratory illnesses aggravated by smoke. One woman in a Yuba City shelter was recovering from cancer surgery with a stapled wound.
…Last week, nearly all the shelters from Chico to Yuba City were hit by an outbreak of the stomach illness — sending dozens to hospitals. Last week, the Butte County Public Health Department said 145 people in the shelters had been sick with the virus. Fearful volunteers and evacuees rarely shake hands anymore; fist bumps and elbow knocks are highly encouraged.
"Just threw up a few times," said Martha Pichotta, 65, who was staying at the Red Cross shelter in Yuba City, about 50 miles south of Chico…
Adding to the physical and emotional stress, especially for seniors, was the hurried escape from longtime homes and the disruption of often predictable lives. There was little time for practical consideration, let alone sentiment — beloved pets and rooms full of memories were lost.
…Saunders, the 89-year-old Paradise resident, nearly burned to death in a car. One side of it melted.
Most of the older folks in the shelter said they couldn't be more grateful for all the support and care they've received. Even so, life in a shelter is hard.
…Red Cross volunteer in Yuba City, said they can offer displaced people Pepto-Bismol and lots of Gatorade. But some were so dehydrated they needed to be hospitalized…
Many of those who lost nearly everything are in a limbo state, not knowing what they will do next. Some are waiting on assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or for an insurance check. Others are looking for affordable housing in nearby communities. Paradise was attractive not just because of its natural beauty but because housing was reasonably priced for retirees. Several evacuees, like Pichotta, had been living in mobile homes.
…Pichotta sat in a wheelchair puffing on a cigarette with a blanket over her legs. She was talking with her 33-year-old son about what they should do now.
…They didn't have residential insurance and their only monthly income is a $900 Supplemental Security Income check…
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2018-11-20/paradise-camp-fire-pushes-seniors-from-retirement-homes-to-field-hospitals
Poor, elderly and too frail to escape: Paradise fire killed the most vulnerable residents
ReplyDeleteBy LAURA NEWBERRY
FEB 10, 2019
PARADISE, CALIF.
…Experts say the incineration of Paradise, a sleepy town of 27,000 nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, is a case study in what can go wrong when a landscape that’s prone to wildfire is disproportionately populated by those who are least likely to escape.
…most of the 86 people who died in the fire were seniors. Of the 69 bodies that have been positively identified, 53 were over the age of 65 — or 77%.
…The U.S. Fire Administration estimates that older adults are more than twice as likely than the general population to die in fires. And a quarter of Paradise residents had a disability, which is more than double the statewide rate.
Decades of research confirm that the physical limitations that accompany advanced age make it much more difficult to escape disaster, but so do the social isolation and stubbornness that experts say are common among the elderly.
…“We have to fundamentally change our approach to emergency management,” said L. Vance Taylor, chief of the Office of Access and Functional Needs at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services…
When the Camp fire marched through Paradise last fall, an estimated 25 percent of Paradise-area residents were 65 or older, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That compares with 14 percent statewide.
The city had long attracted retirees with limited incomes seeking picturesque surroundings. Many lived in retirement communities such as Ridgewood, a quiet and clean mobile home park surrounded by pine trees.
…According to fire officials, mobile homes — particularly those built before tougher building regulations were enacted in 1976 — burn faster due to the materials they’re made from, like aluminum and particle board. And mobile homes in parks have little space between them, making it easy for flames to jump from one dwelling to another.
…When people are socially isolated — as many elderly and disabled are — they are more likely to get left behind, experts say.
Yet, if there’s a greater feeling of unity within a neighborhood, seniors are less likely to experience the negative health impacts of isolation during a crisis, said Allison Heid, an independent research consultant who studies adult development and aging.
“Having a network and having resources for their physical, mental and social health, makes all the difference in a disaster,” she said.
This means the most vulnerable must be actively sought out before, during and after the onset of a disaster, Taylor said.
Local governments could help facilitate such networks through a buddy system program, Taylor said. Able-bodied residents might volunteer to assist someone who is likely to need help in an emergency.
A state law passed in 2016 requires each county to consider access and functional needs in its evacuation plan. The law does not specify, however, how in-depth those efforts should be or how much money should be spent on them.
In Butte County, this took the form of the Special Needs Awareness Program, or SNAP, first developed by the town of Paradise and adopted by the county in 2008.
Butte County’s sheriff’s office has access to a map that plots the addresses of SNAP participants — 4,000 at the time of the Camp fire, according to officials…In practice, SNAP was more about “helping residents to learn to help themselves,” Dunsmoor said, such as making sure they knew who to contact in an emergency.
…Understanding the way seniors process and react to wildfires is key to protecting them, Taylor said. It’s why disaster plans should ultimately be informed by a diverse set of stakeholders, including the old, the disabled and the economically disadvantaged.
“It’s something I’ll ask again and again,” Taylor said. “Who’s at your planning table?”
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-camp-fire-seniors-mobile-home-deaths-20190209-story.html