Sheldon S. Tobin

Permanency Planning Among Older parents of Adults with Lifelong Disabilities

Older parents must be assisted in making permanency plans for their adult dependant offsprings. Although attention has been given to the accelerating numbers of adults with life-long disabilities and the elderly parents who care for them at home, there has been a lack of attention for how these parents must cope with the future of their offsprings when they can no longer continue as caregivers. As a step towards filling this lacuna, the current state of knowledge is reviewed encompassing the epidemiology of these families; residential, legal and financial options associated with permanency planning; interaction of older parents with formal service systems; factors predictive of the propensity of parents to engage in permanency planning; and the benefits derived by elderly parents from having made plans for the future well-being of their dependent offsprings.

Strengthening aging families : diversity in practice and policy

Foreword - Nancy K Schlossberg Introduction PART ONE: ASSISTING FAMILIES WITH NORMATIVE CONCERNS Supporting the Family in Elder Care - Ronald W Toseland, Gregory C Smith and Phillip McCallion Fostering Family Involvement in Institutional Care - Sheldon S Tobin Strengthening Sibling Relationships in Later Years - Victor G Cicirelli PART TWO: HELPING FAMILIES WITH SPECIAL CONCERNS Confronting Maltreatment of Elders by Their Family - Jordan I Kosberg and Juanita L Garcia Assisting Older Families of Adults with Lifelong Disabilities - Gregory C Smith, Sheldon S Tobin and Elise M Fullmer Challenging Biases against Families of Older Gays and Lesbians - Elise M Fullmer PART THREE: RECOGNIZING SELECT FAMILY DYNAMICS Understanding Intergenerational Issues in the Aging Family System - Paul W Power Facilitating Health Care Decisions within Aging Families - Evelyn Bata and Paul W Power Achieving Intimacy in Late Life Marriages - Susan Krauss Whitbourne and Erin Cassidy Appreciating Ethnicity among Aging Families - Tom Johnson PART FOUR: A SYNTHESIS OF INTERVENTIONS FOR AGING FAMILIES Diversity of Direct Practice - Sheldon S Tobin and Paul W Power Preventive Strategies to Building Competencies - Gregory C Smith Policy Issues Related to Later Life Families - Timothy H Brubaker and Ellie Brubaker

Older Mothers Who Do Not Use Day Programs for Their Daughters and Sons with Mental Retardation

We have previously reported those mothers of offspring with mental retardation that do not use available day services differ in many important ways from mothers of offspring who use these services (Smith et al., 1994). The present study extends our earlier work by examining whether or not significant differences exist between two distinct subgroups among the mothers of offspring who are not presently using day services: those who never used day services (n = 37) and those who withdrew from use (n = 22). Findings suggest that the oldest mothers who never used day services for their offspring probably gave birth to their child when only institutional care was readily available. On the other hand, perceptions of the service system caused mothers in the group who withdrew their offspring to have increased sensitivity to inadequacy of programs and to feel greater need for additional services. Practices and policies to recruit these hard-to-reach families as clients are essential

Beyond Visitation: Ministries with the Homebound Elderly

Reports exploratory research designed to identify type of ministries to the home-bound in four communities. Four models of ministry emerged from the research: (1) the pastoral-focused ministry; (2) the shared clergy-laity visitation model; (3) the minister of visitation form; and (4) the combined clergy/laity involvement ministry. Concludes that a successful homebound ministry includes four principles: (1) ministry should address the whole person; (2) reach out to all persons who have a need; (3) utilize shut-ins; and (4) use all the possible resources of ministry.

Enhancing CMHC and church collaboration for the elderly.

Collaboration among CMHCs and churches on behalf of the elderly is critical for their mental health because religion is important in their lives. Although there has been increasing recognition of religious support systems in mental health (Pargament, 1982) as well as the need of the elderly for community mental health services (Gelfand & Gelfand, 1982), underutilization of CMHCs by the elderly has been recognized by both practitioners and researchers. (See, for example, the articles published in this journal by Pratt & Kethley, 1980,

Issues of Care in Long-Term Settings

Edelson and Lyons (1985), in the introduction to their excellent book Institutional Care of the Mentally Impaired Elderly, describe basic principles of working in institutional settings. They begin by admonishing readers not to confuse mental disease with “excess disability” that can be treated, particularly visual and auditory deficits. Care, they state must be “rehabilitative whenever possible, prosthetic whenever necessary, and at all times humane, identity-preserving, and ego-supporting” (p.XIX). They suggest that institutional arrangements “that support direct care staff (ie nursing staff) in establishing a supportive relationship with impaired residents focuses attention on how interdisciplinary teams work” (p. XXI). Indeed, their message here is that the main purpose of teams, and mental health practitioners is to help in the structuring of ongoing supportive relationships between nursing staff and individual residents. The usefulness of sophisticated practitioners they say, is less in their one-to-one interaction with residents than in their educating and structuring of interaction between staff and residents.