Wisconsin is facing a crisis of care on two fronts.

First, the need for child care continues to outpace availability. Providers say families of 30,000 children across the state can’t find child care. This problem is particularly bad outside of larger cities — around 70% of rural Wisconsin is classified as a child care desert.

“This textbook of a broken market — it’s just not working,” said Paula Drew, director of policy and research at the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.

There’s also a significant need for more care — and more social connection — for older adults.

“Isolation can increase someone’s risk for dementia, for heart disease, diabetes, depression,” said Suzanne Morley, a health promotion program coordinator with the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging.

Already under strain, the elder care industry in Wisconsin is bracing for increased demand as the number of residents 75 years old or older is expected to grow by more than 40% by 2030. Given that both child care and elder care industries in Wisconsin are facing similar struggles — largely based on employee shortages — several communities are bridging those gaps with something called intergenerational care.

“It means multiple generations coming together under one roof,” Morley explained. “Sometimes it might be in a more health care-based setting where there’s a nursing home and there’s younger generations, like a preschool in the same facility. Or it can kind of be a little bit less formal and be in community centers.”

She said intergenerational care programs and facilities are increasing around the state.

“In the past five, six years, maybe even more and longer, there’s a lot of interest in intergenerational programming,” Morley said. “There’s a lot of research out there that’s been coming out about the benefits of intergenerational programming. and the benefits not only for older adults, but also for younger generations.”

Intergenerational care activities vary from place to place. One program may have older adults visiting young children for reading time and another program may have high school students helping seniors with technology. All of these programs bring these groups together for social connection, play and learning.

“There’s a lot of momentum and excitement around intergenerational programs,” Drew said, adding that she’s noticed an uptick in interest in intergenerational care – and for good reason.

“I think both our youngest and our oldest tend to live in the moment more than us in the middle,” she said. “Our seniors have a lot to give in terms of their skills, and they can put those skills to use with young children who really are starving for that one-on-one attention. That does so much for their brain development.”

The older set also sees a boost.

“For older adults, there’s lots of health benefits,” Morley said. “There’s research that shows it can improve cognition, so helping with things like staving off dementia and cognitive impairment. It can also increase their self-confidence and their self efficacy if they’re interacting with younger generations. It can improve health outcomes. It can actually lower blood pressure.”

There are several programs across Wisconsin already — and new ones are on the way.

“I think this effort is really just an extension of what we already know works, and we already know has all these benefits,” said Maddie Sweetman, a member of the Groundswell Collective, a grassroots organization in Walworth County. The group is pushing for a combined day care and older adult facility in an empty wing of a county-run nursing home.

“We all sort of know what it feels like to have that isolation and be sort of stuck where we are, and I think rural communities can suffer extra from that,” Sweetman said. “And so intergenerational care like this would bridge some of these gaps.”

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-1st Congressional District, has co-authored legislation that would establish a grant program for long-term adult care facilities to operate with child care programs and facilitate intergenerational activities. Named the “Care Across Generations Act,” the bill has bipartisan support in Congress.

The small, rural community of Plymouth in Sheboygan County has seen benefits from this approach for more than a decade.

“It’s really about bringing people together and creating connections between people,” said Meghann Weeden, who runs Generations. It’s a non-profit community center geared toward seniors that partners with a day care center on site.

“Creating a community inside the community where people can get support and feel valued and seen and heard,” Weeden explained.

“It gives people a reason to get out of bed in the morning —- it’s something new,”said Doreen Salkowski, a retired teacher who volunteers at Generations.

“I love it. I feel like I’m back in the classroom again,” she said. “Everybody benefits. The community benefits. They’re able to see the young people as they’re growing, interacting more with the older people, respecting them more.”

“By creating more intergenerational locations,” Weeden said, “we’re breaking down those barriers and helping everybody find those connections.”