Urban Warriors

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week, we feature intergenerational program ideas that were tried and successful. This series is a tool to highlight various age-optimized programs and practices. The program descriptions are provided by representatives of the programs. Inclusion in this series does not imply Generations United’s endorsement or recommendation, but rather encourages ideas to inspire other programs.

This week’s cool ideas is Urban Warriors, a program of the YMCA of Metro Chicago and the Adler School of Professional Psychology, that pairs youth from Chicago’s roughest neighborhoods with military veterans.

(Check our archives for parts 1-68.)

The program was featured in a July 11, 2014 Chicago Tribune article. According to that piece, some of the program’s young participants were referred by their schools or the justice system.

The program is part of the Y’s broader “focus on treating mental and emotional wounds that youths growing up in Chicago’s more fractured communities suffer.”

The Tribune article shed light on the hard lives of Alex (who was 18 at the time of the article) and Sammy (who was 15).

“I’ve seen people get shot,” Alex told the Tribune reporter, Annie Sweeney. “It does...mess my head up. But I’m living it every day. So, like, I guess I put up with it.”

“Right when I walked outside they shot someone at the corner,” recalled Sammy, who the Tribune noted is not in a gang. “Then they started chasing me and shooting. ...I got away. Again. That was my second time.”

Luckily for the young men, the vets chosen for the Urban Warrior project could relate.

Many of them not only suffered stress from their experiences in combat, but, like Alex and Sammy, they also grew up in Little Village and knew the dangers youth faced on the streets.

Read the full Chicago Tribune article.

Got something cool you tried that was successful? Why not tweet your cool intergenerational ideas to #cooligideas? You can also post them to our Intergenerational Connections Facebook Group. We want to highlight innovative age-optimized programs and practices through our blog, social media and weekly e-newsletter! Share the inspiration.

The Resounding Resiliency of Grandfamilies: Generations United's Statement

Approximately 2.7 million grandparents in the United States are responsible for raising their grandchildren. More than one in five of these grandparents live below the poverty line. Yet their circumstances are often overlooked when trying to strengthen the financial lives of families in lower-income communities.

Despite these hardships, grandfamily households are a better alternative to placing children in non-relative care. Children raised in kinship care, or what are commonly referred to as grandfamilies, fare better than those placed in the care of non-relatives. They are more likely to report feeling loved, achieve stability, stay connected to their brothers and sisters and understand their roots and culture. They are also more likely to have a couch to crash on when they’re too old to stay in the foster care system.

And even though these grandparent caregivers are skilled money managers, they just don’t have enough to stretch when they take on raising their grandchildren.

We partnered with CFED and Citi Community Development to get a better understanding of grandfamilies, their financial lives and how the available resources can better serve them. The findings are included in our report, The Resounding Resilience of Grandfamilies: Financial Stories from Older Relatives Care for Children in Lower-Income Communities.

The report, based on interviews from 20 grandparent caregivers in Chicago and Trenton, NJ, includes stories of sacrifice. For many caregivers, sacrificing for the children meant giving up a life they envisioned. For others, these sacrifices meant giving up on thinking about the future (retirement, etc.).

These caregivers keep families together and save taxpayers $4 billion a year by keeping their grandchildren out of the foster care system.

Through our National Center on Grandfamilies, we work to enact policies and promote programs, like kinship navigators and respite care, which help grandfamilies address challenges. Research shows that programs like these can reduce costs and increase permanency, while resulting in fewer days in child welfare custody and lower rates of foster care reentry.

The Resounding Resiliency of Grandfamilies also highlights opportunities to help improve the financial situation of grandfamilies – from empowering caregivers to reach their financial goals, to seeking ways to build the capacities of caregivers’ social and family networks to financially support grandfamilies, to continuing to learn more about the financial lives of grandfamilies.

To learn more about the financial lives of the 2.7 million grandfamily caregivers in America, download The Resounding Resilience of Grandfamilies. To contribute to our knowledge about grandfamilies, share a story with us about a grandfamily in your community.

Cross Cultural Community Center in Chicago

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week, we feature intergenerational program ideas that were tried and successful. This series is a tool to highlight various age-optimized programs and practices. The program descriptions are provided by representatives of the programs. Inclusion in this series does not imply Generations United’s endorsement or recommendation, but rather encourages ideas to inspire other programs.

This week’s cool idea is the Cross Cultural Community Center in Chicago, where college students teach cooking classes for older adults.

(Check our archives for parts 1-42.)

The classes focus on youth educating older adults about American foods – tips on cooking, nutrition and health.

The goal is to help the older adults become more independent by learning how to cook their own healthy meals, while strengthening intergenerational connections and understanding.

Some of their other programs include youth and older adults gardening together, helping Korean-American older adults translate English, and providing grandparents raising grandkids with information and resources.

Got something cool you tried that was successful? Why not tweet your cool intergenerational ideas to #cooligideas? You can also post them to our Intergenerational Connections Facebook Group. We want to highlight innovative age-optimized programs and practices through our blog, social media and weekly e-newsletter! Share the inspiration.

Generations of Us: An Intergenerational Storytelling Project

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week, we’ll feature intergenerational program ideas that were tried and successful. This series is a tool to highlight various age-optimized programs and practices. The program descriptions are provided by representatives of the programs. Inclusion in this series does not imply Generations United’s endorsement or recommendation, but rather encourages ideas to inspire other programs.

In part 21 of our series, we feature Generations of Us, an intergenerational storytelling project in Chicago, IL.

(Check our archives for parts 1-20.)

Generations of Us: An Intergenerational Storytelling Project on Chicago’s South Side connected young and older adults living on Chicago’s South Side to share their personal experiences through oral history interviews.

The project aimed to use the power of storytelling to promote intergenerational reconciliation and learning between young and older adults living in communities impacted by poverty, violence, and the criminal justice system.  

The project rested on the idea that intergenerational dialogue will promote peace by creating understanding and stronger networks within the community.

Through a partnership with the South Side Help Center in Chicago's Roseland community and the Atlas Senior Center in the South Chicago neighborhood, the young and older adults participated in interactive workshops focusing on the power of storytelling to hear firsthand accounts of history, share life experiences and perspectives, combat ageism, build relationships, and promote intergenerational dialogue.

The project took place during the month of August 2014 and included 8 workshops. It began with a one-day workshop that introduced oral history and including an interactive aging simulation with the young people at the South Side Help Center.

The remaining workshops took place at the Atlas Senior Center, which allowed the young adults to visit the Senior Center each day.

The curriculum followed the 6-step process of Oral History: plan, prepare, exchange, preserve, present, and reflect.

To ensure that the participants would be able to interact as much as possible, workshops incorporated intergenerational activities, icebreakers, games, practice interviews, and lessons on the process of oral history each day.

On average, 25 participants attended each day, and we typically had a ratio of one older adult to two young adults. In total,  approximately 50 participants attended and recorded 10 full-length oral history interviews.

The last day of the workshop was a presentation and celebration that was open to the public, which included playing short selections from the interviews, participants sharing their personal reflections, playing BINGO, and eating delicious food!

Each participant received a t-shirt and a CD with their audio recording and approximately 50 people were in attendance for the celebration! Due to the success of this project, future collaborations between the South Side Help Center and the Atlas Senior Center are in the process of being discussed.

For more information about this project, please take a look at the Generations of Us blog and/or contact Kelli Bosak directly at kbosak@uchicago.edu.

Kelli Bosak is a graduate student at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.  

This project was made possibly by a grant from the Kathryn W. Davis Projects for Peace through the International House of Chicago.

Got something cool you tried that was successful? Why not tweet your cool intergenerational ideas to #cooligideas? You can also post them to our Intergenerational Connections Facebook Group or just text us through the Facebook Messenger app (friend me to join our Cool Intergenerational Ideas group discussion). We want to highlight innovative age-optimized programs and practices through our blog, social media and weekly e-newsletter! Share the inspiration.

University Students and LBFE Elders Share Lessons on Aging and Friendship

Back to school for elder Ginnie and North Park student Kathryn

This post -- along with the photos -- appears courtesy of 2014 edition of Friendship, a print newsletter of Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly, Chicago Chapter.

“When we go to visit Ginnie, it’s not school work, it’s not going to see an elderly lady. For me it’s getting to visit a friend,” wrote Phoenix, a student at Chicago’s North Park University. She is one of many students who benefited from Stories from a Graying America, a college course that brings students into direct contact with LBFE elders.

The course was developed by Lee Strickland, affiliate instructor of dialogue at North Park, in partnership with Christine Bertrand, LBFE’s intergenerational program coordinator. LBFE elders and North Park students are brought together for the duration of the course about aging in America. It’s a general education course with a service learning focus, which incorporates ways for students to give back to others.

“At North Park, we train students for lives of significance and service with a special emphasis on urban engagement,” says Strickland. “We encourage students to develop authentic relationships in the community and get out of the classroom to do meaningful service.”

Students learn about the issues and challenges of aging in society through reading, watching films, participating in classroom discussions and, most important, interacting with those who actually are aging in America.

A North Park University Student working with elder Dorothy

The students meet once a week in class and count their visits with elders as their second weekly class. Two students are paired with an LBFE elder. “By forming friendships with elderly neighbors, we learn their stories, needs and contributions,” says Strickland. “We participate in intergenerational dialogue, which is also intercultural.”

Vital Opportunities

The first course offered in partnership with LBFE was in fall 2012. By the end of the spring 2014 semester, more than 80 students will have participated. A core group of 10 elders volunteers each semester, with some new elders joining and others occasionally opting out. Strickland and Bertrand continue to revise and refine the course as they get feedback from students and elders.

Says student Christiana: “Before, I never paid attention to the elderly I saw on the streets. The determination and will to do things is what I admire most about the elderly after taking this course. I also learned that elderly people like to interact with different age groups and not just people their own age.”

Students and elders also have a lot of fun. “My partner and I agree that neither of us has ever met an elder like Marguerite who was more active than us!” says student Dontrell.

For elder Joyce, who has participated since the first semester, the interaction with the young people is invigorating. “You forget your aches and pains when they come over,” she says.

Bertrand appreciates the chance to offer elders a way to be engaged in the community and to benefit others by sharing their experience. Strickland notes, “The most important thing you can do for elders is not let their talents be wasted – the elders have so much to give.”