Here & Now

A Movement to Connect Generations Takes on a Crisis of Care

Frederica Freyberg:
In the ongoing struggle for more care programs for older adults as well as young children, some communities in Wisconsin are turning to an approach that combines the two different age groups into the same programs. As Steven Potter reports, the result has benefits for both old and young, and the idea is gaining traction.

Doreen Salkowski:
Hi, how are you today?

Owen:
I’m Owen. Do you remember me?

Doreen Salkowski:
Yes, you are.

Steven Potter:
Like elsewhere in the country, 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.

Paula Drew:
Textbook of a broken market. It’s just not working.

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

Suzanne Morley:
Social isolation can increase someone’s risk for dementia, for heart disease, diabetes, depression.

Steven Potter:
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 the end of the decade.

Woman:
You need some help?

Child:
Yeah.

Steven Potter:
Given that both the 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.

Suzanne Morley:
Intergenerational care means multiple generations coming together under one roof. You know, 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.

Steven Potter:
Suzanne Morley of the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging says intergenerational care programs and facilities are increasing around the state.

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

Woman with sign:
Do I rock?

Child:
Yeah.

Steven Potter:
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.

Paula Drew:
I think there’s a lot of momentum and excitement around intergenerational programs.

Steven Potter:
Paula Drew of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association has also noticed an uptick in interest in intergenerational care, and for good reason.

Paula Drew:
I think both our youngest and our oldest tend to sort of live in the moment more than us, sort of in the middle. 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. And that does so much for their brain development.

Steven Potter:
And the older set also sees a boost.

Suzanne Morley:
For older adults, there’s lots of health benefits. There’s research that shows that 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.

Steven Potter:
There are several programs across Wisconsin already, and new ones are on the way.

Maddie Sweetman:
I think this effort is really just an extension of what we already know works, and we already know has all these benefits.

Steven Potter:
In Walworth County, Maddie Sweetman is with the Groundswell Collective, a grassroots organization pushing for combined daycare and older adult facility in an empty wing of a county-run nursing home.

Maddie Sweetman:
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. And so intergenerational care like this would bridge some of those gaps.

Steven Potter:
The small rural community of Plymouth in Sheboygan County has seen these benefits for more than a decade.

Meghann Weeden:
It’s really about bringing people together and creating connections between people.

Steven Potter:
Meghann Weeden runs Generations, a nonprofit community center there geared towards seniors that partners with a daycare center on site.

Meghann Weeden:
Creating a community inside the community where people can get support and feel valued and seen and heard. It gives people a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Doreen Salkowski:
And then you are going to make a sign.

Steven Potter:
Doreen Salkowski is a retired teacher who now volunteers at Generations Community Center.

Doreen Salkowski:
I love it. I’m — I feel like I’m back in the classroom again. 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.

Meghann Weeden:
Isolation and loneliness is a nationwide, worldwide issue. So by creating more intergenerational locations, we’re breaking down those barriers and just helping everybody find those connections.

Steven Potter:
Reporting from Plymouth…

Senior:
Oh, I like that one.

Steven Potter:
… I’m Steven Potter for “Here & Now.”