Jewish Home Lifecare :: Caring as individual as you

AJAS Names Jewish Home Lifecare Mentor of the Year

Career development program to meet demands for geriatric caregivers created by aging Boomer population
<< News Archive

AJAS Names Jewish Home Lifecare Mentor of the Year
Jewish Home Blog Jewish Home News

AJAS Names Jewish Home Lifecare Mentor of the Year

 The Association of Jewish Aging Services (AJAS) Mentor of the Year Award is usually awarded to an individual.  This year the recipient was one organization as a whole — Jewish Home Lifecare — in recognition of its longtime commitment to mentoring others and promoting these collaborative efforts with the community and funders.

Eternally young, but aging chronologically, the baby boomer population will reach new heights in the year 2030 when the number of elders in America will hit a record-breaking 70 million. Anticipating a shortage of healthcare professionals, Jewish Home Lifecare offers unique mentoring and education programs that develop, prepare and recruit the best geriatric caregivers — and has won an award for doing so.

While mentoring has long been important to Jewish Home’s training of healthcare professionals, medical students and fellows,administrators, and clinical, non-clinical and nursing students, the two winning programs stand out:

The Berman Peer Mentor Home Health Aide Program

Home Health Aides are the backbone of home care service and are a crucial component of the spectrum of care that allows elders to age in place. But, the industry is challenged by low wages, little possibility of career advancement and high turnover rates among the aides.

Home Assistance Personnel Inc. (HAPI), the licensed home health agency of Jewish Home Lifecare, developed the Berman Peer Mentor Aide Program to provide a career path to higher paying work for aides that allows for career growth, higher job satisfaction and positively impacts HHA retention.

“When aides feel supported and recognized it positively impacts their interaction with the clients,” says Bridget Gallagher, Senior Vice President, Community Services Division. “Thanks to funding from the Mandel L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation, we are setting a high standard for compassionate and quality care of our clients   while empowering our Home Health Aides.”

Peer Mentor Aides are now recognized as an elite group and are often specifically requested by nurses to assist with more challenging cases.

Health Professional Youth Mentoring Program: the iMentorAlternative 

The Health Professional Youth Mentoring Program was introduced last year as part of the Geriatric Career Development (GCD) Program, which helps at-risk New York City high school students develop  career ladders in health care. This interactive email program matches healthcare professionals and graduate students with GCD high school juniors. A second mentoring component, The Youth/Senior Pairing and Leadership Development, assigns each student a nursing home resident as an elder mentor to complete projects such as life histories and crafts.

Congratulations to the staff and funders who are at the heart of these unique programs!