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The Internet can provide you
with insight, inspiration, and timely information.
Take advantage of this great resource.
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The Better Hearing Institute offers a Hearing Simulator that allows viewers to hear an approximation of various levels of hearing loss under varied situations.
Promoting Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Toolkit (for Senior Living Communities)
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Mental Health Services has completed a toolkit for Promoting Mental Health and Preventing Suicide: A Toolkit for Senior Living Communities. The toolkit contains resources to help staff in senior living communities promote mental health and prevent suicide among their residents. Senior living communities include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, independent living facilities, and continuing care retirement communities. The Toolkit also provides resources and information to help residents become active participants in mental health promotion and suicide prevention efforts. This toolkit is a free resource.
- Includes materials to help create and implement policies, protocols, programs, and activities to promote mental health and prevent suicide among older adults.
- Discusses strategies to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for all residents, regardless of their risk for suicide.
- Focuses on what facilities should do after suicides and suicide attempts.
The information includes set up materials for staff training and resident and family training and a fact sheet for residents.
Fostering Connections Resource Center
The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (Fostering Connections) became law in 2008. The law represents the most significant federal reforms to foster care in more than a decade. The Resource Center was developed to help with implementation of this law.
New Help for Children Raised by Grandparents
Description of the Law
North Carolina and the Law
AGing Integrated Database (AGID)
The AGing Integrated Database (AGID) is an on-line database compiled from AoA-related data files and surveys, and includes population characteristics from the Census Bureau for comparison purposes. The system allows users to produce customized tables in a step-by-step process and output the results in print or spreadsheet form.
For example:
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Caregiver Support, NC 2008
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Expenditures per Client
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Counseling
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$464.01
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Respite Care
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$1,086.77
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Supplemental Services
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$349.28
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Access Assistance
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$82.41
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Information Services
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$0.58
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*courtesy CARES
Videos for Caregivers
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a number of short videos online on health information and on topics of interest to caregivers. They have a great health section on their website and they now offer videos to supplement. Transcripts are provided. Find topics such as:
- Medicare Basics for Caregivers
- Talking to Your Doctor
- Sleeping and Aging
- Taking Medicines
- Low Vision
- Diabetes
- Caring for Someone With Alzheimer’s
- Balance Problems
- Falls and Older Adults
- and many more
Easter Seals Project Action
If you want to find out how to begin to plan, how to start, and how to fund a senior and/or disabled transportation program in your county, find free online resources here.
The Alzheimer's Project Provider Resources
The National Institute on Aging collaborated with HBO and others to present The Alzheimer's Project, an Emmy Award winning, multi-platform (television, web, DVD, and print) series that looks at groundbreaking scientific discoveries and seeks to bring a wider public understanding of Alzheimer's disease research and care.
It is hoped that local groups will use the media to educate the public and further assist Alzheimer's caregivers. The Project offers DVDs of the films, discussion guides, information resources, and practical details about hosting a community event to promote education and discussion about Alzheimer’s on a local level.
SAGE (Services and Advocacy for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders- LGBT)
This group has received national funding to develop a National Technical Assistance Resource Center for LGBT Elders. “Agencies that provide services to older individuals may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this underserved population. The Resource Center will provide information, assistance and resources for both mainstream aging organizations and LGBT organizations and will provide assistance to LGBT individuals as they plan for future long-term care needs.” Until then, if you have the need for information and/or assistance in dealing with LGBT seniors, this organization may be able to help.
National Legal Resource Center
NLRC works to "provide the aging and legal networks with easy access to a coordinated national legal assistance support system in order to strengthen legal assistance/elder rights efforts across the country." "NLRC partners can provide support and assistance on both substantive legal issues and service delivery systems issues. This includes intensive case consultation and training on complex and emerging legal issues, and access to a wide range of information resources. Types of legal issues include, for example, saving elders from the tragic loss of their homes through foreclosure, protecting against consumer scams that destroy nest eggs, problems in long-term care facilities, and difficulties in accessing public benefits essential to remaining financially secure, independent, and healthy."
Culture Change Links
"Pioneer Network was formed in 1997 by a small group of prominent professionals in long-term care to advocate for person-directed care. ... Pioneer Network advocates for elders across the spectrum of living options (which are often dictated by differing levels of the medical care required); and is working towards a culture of aging that supports the care of elders in settings where individual voices are heard and individual choices are respected — whether it is in nursing homes, transitional care settings or wherever home and community may be. "
UNC Institute on Aging Online Training
The UNC Institute on Aging offers four continuing education modules online. The topics include:
- Understanding Dementia (causes, frequency, and treatments)
- Making Ends Meet in Retirement (understanding older adults’ financial challenges)
- Introduction to Evidence-Based Programs (how to use evidence to make programmatic decisions)
- Successful Aging (suggestions about how to transition successfully into older adulthood)
The modules are available for free and are structures for people who work with older adults.
The Unbroken Circle
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The Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life offers a toolkit for congregations. It's goal is to "....provide today’s congregations with an inspiring, achievable vision for caring for people facing illness, end of life and grief. From leadership development and education to congregational care and worship, this book guides clergy and lay leaders in weaving end-of-life care into the fabric of congregational life. Abundant practical tips, examples, and resources provide congregations with tools to strengthen the way they care." The book is available for purchase.
They also offer as part of the toolkit, "Spiritual and Cultural Traditions: Resources Around Illness, End of Life and Grief". This companion to "The Unbroken Circle" "offers a compendium of resources tied to specific faiths and cultures. It is designed to offer insights rooted in the rich perspectives that come from deeply held religious and cultural beliefs and practices."
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Culture Change Now
Offers training and education on culture change to help facilities make the transition... Action Pact, Inc. is a company of trainers, consultants and educators who assist nursing homes and other elder care organizations in becoming resident-directed.
NC Roadmap for Healthy Aging
The Roadmap is designed for community and health-care providers interested in implementing health promotion programs to best meet the needs of older adults in their community. The Roadmap will provide a step-by-step guide to the process of identifying a health promotion need in your community, identifying appropriate health promotion programs to meet this need, establishing partnerships to pool resources, and implementing programs.
Prescription Drug Options for Older Adults - A Toolkit for Professionals
This Prescription Drug Options for Older Adults Toolkit is a resource for AAAs and Title VI programs to use in encouraging consumers to take an active role in their health care options. One component of health care that is especially important for maintaining good overall health is prescription drug management. The resources in this toolkit provide consumers with a better understanding about how to manage chronic conditions, reduce the potential for harmful drug interactions and save money.
Disability and Elderly Emergency Management Report of Recommendations
6 Steps to Individual Disaster Preparedness -
Starting Your Personal Disaster & Emergency Preparedness
This toolkit is a resource for Senior Center directors and others to help seniors and caregivers prepare for disasters and emergencies. There are six steps which have been divided into sessions that have been planned out for instructors. Each comes complete with a supply list of items to gather for the session and visual aids. Tips for instructors are also provided.
Federal Records Retention Schedule
The Duke Family Support Program offers a variety of resources for those caring for people with Alzheimer's disease and/or dementia. Some of these resources have been produced to help professionals in care settings to deal with both the Alzheimer's patient and family members of the patient. Some of the publications are listed below. Items are available to N.C. residents at no charge or for a small fee.
List of publications
Set of Senior Center Booklets:
When Your Friend Has Memory Problems: For the Senior Center Participant
by Edna Ballard (1993)
This booklet is designed to help the senior center participant understand, accept and learn to respond more sympathetically to other senior center participants with early signs of memory impairment.
Alzheimer's Disease: For the Senior Center Director
by Edna Ballard (1993)
This booklet is to help the senior center director better integrate people with Alzheimer’s in senior center activities.
Working With Family Caregivers of People with Memory Disorders: A North Carolina Information & Assistance Toolkit
by Lisa P. Gwyther and Edna Ballard (2002)
For all aging and social services staff with one section of materials to distribute directly to families.
More Information About the Toolkit and a Link to Download
This dementia-specific toolkit for information/referral or Helpline staff has 3 sections:
- Basics about memory disorders
- Telephone counseling and referral strategies for aging network staff, and
- Single-sheet handouts to copy for family caregivers on using services and responding to the person with dementia from diagnosis through terminal care.
(Steps to Success and NIA Caregiver Guide are included in package.)
Get Connected! Linking Older Adults with Medication, Alcohol, and Mental Health Resources
The development of this Tool Kit was a joint effort between the US Administration on Aging and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Council on Aging.
It includes:
- Program Materials, Fact sheets
- Promoting Older Adult Health Guide
- Substance Adult Among Older Adults: A Guide for Social Services Providers
- How to Talk to an Older Person Who Has a Problem with Alcohol or Medications (pamphlet)
- Aging, Medicines and Alcohol (pamphlet)
- Good Mental Health is Agingless (pamphlet)
- It Can Happen to Anyone (video)
You can order a Get Connected Tool Kit free; call toll-free at: 1-800-729-6686.
Live Well, Live Long
A health promotion and disease prevention site for providers from the American Society on Aging and funded by the a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The provide strategies and tools for professionals, in stand-alone modules, available free on the Internet. Each module is designed for use by professionals to complement existing health promotion programs.
Center for Healthy Aging - Model Health Programs for Communities
This site offers encouragement and assistance to community-based organizations serving older adults to develop and implement evidence-based programs on health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic disease self-management. Evidence-based programming translates tested program models or interventions into practical, effective community programs that can provide proven health benefits to participants.
The Center serves as a resource center for aging service providers to implement healthy aging programs. Resources provided include: manuals, toolkits, research, examples of model health programs,and links to websites on related health topics.
The site was developed with assistance from the UNC Institute on Aging.
Affordable Housing
Housing Resources By County in NC
Affordable Rental Housing in NC