Saratoga Life Transition Program Needs Volunteers

SARATOGA springs — Saratoga Senior Center is paging late career employees, retirees, and semi-retirees to respond to a call for service in its Senior Life Transitions Program.  All are welcome.  The hours are totally up to you, the pay is 0, and the satisfaction is High. Consider being part of a team that brings comfort and companionship to seriously ill seniors in Saratoga County.  With an epidemic of social isolation and loneliness upon us, this very personal need is extensive in both urban and rural areas.

The Senior Life Transitions Program was founded in 2021 as a partnership between the Saratoga Senior Center and primary care medical practices, the idea being to close gaps that exist between healthcare and social services care. These gaps impact seniors disproportionately due to the increase in co-morbidities, the rise in poverty among the elderly, and the daily impact of social determinants of health (such as transportation challenges, food insecurity, and housing challenges). Social isolation itself is now recognized as a major impact on the elderly.  This is a damaging phenomenon that together we can address here in our own local community, using a professionally-guided, volunteer-intensive, grass-roots, bottom-up, boots-on-the-ground approach.

Current volunteers in the program include retired doctors, nurses, and social workers, as well as former caregivers and residents who want to help out close to home. The volunteer team is supervised by Phil Di Sorbo, retired Hospice Executive Director and Lisa Perrone, Social Worker and Certified Patient Advocate. The basic principles of palliative care guide the Life Transitions work: being very focused on the uniqueness of the elder being served; an emphasis on the quality of life and enhancing personhood; and collaborating with medical practices and other social agencies. 

Call or message the Saratoga Senior Center to volunteer now: 518-584-1621 and ask for Barbara Devlin, Volunteer Coordinator.