Caring for the Whole Senior

JFCS Clients Make the Most of their “Encore” 

By Sylvia Whitman

Forget red and blue: Gray and white dominate the local map. Sarasota may not be the oldest county by median age in the United States, or even in Florida, but it’s getting up there, according to Pam Baron, director of senior programs for Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Sarasota-Manatee (JFCS). Like the rest of the country, and the globe, this region is aging, with a third of the population above age 65 and a significant portion age 80 or older. This period of the lifespan often brings losses—but also opportunities.

Without Pollyannaism, JFCS addresses the first and embraces the second. “When you think of seniors,” says CEO Heidi Brown, “it’s not their last chapter. They’re winding up for the encore.”

JFCS’s work has inspired Ruthellen and Marc Rubin to endow “The Bradford and Temi Saivetz Fund for Seniors,” named for Ruthellen’s parents. After her dad died, Ruthellen and Marc moved down to Longboat Key to look after her mom—and discovered the demands of caregiving.

Ruthellen says they were lucky: They could hire a nurse to stay overnight with her mom, bedridden and unable to use the phone. “I knew she was safe. What about people who couldn’t afford to hire someone to help? What about those people who are just alone?”

After Temi Saivetz died in 2018 at age 97, the Rubins’ extended family laid down a philanthropic challenge, promising to match donations over the next five years up to $1 million. 

“A big inspiration for Ruthellen was to help other caregivers through a very difficult journey,” says Brown. “We know our senior services will continue to be in high demand. We’re so grateful to Ruthellen and Marc for their vision and generosity that allow us to support seniors’ dignity and independence.”

Creating a Community

About 25 years ago, says Baron, JFCS started a senior outreach program. Before the curtailment of pensions, many retirees in their late 50s and early 60s settled on the Gulf Coast and found themselves aging far from the families and institutions that had anchored their adulthood. Paradise had thorns, though: a sense of isolation and lack of purpose. These compounded the ordinary challenges of senescence: acute or chronic illness, caregiving, death of a longtime partner, financial stress, loss of self-sufficiency. 

JFCS has long taken a “a wholistic approach to caring for seniors,” says CEO Brown, “which includes their emotional wellbeing.” According to Baron, the senior program touches about 500 clients and fields 2-3 new calls a day. Although physicians and financial planners now advise people to plan to be a centenarian, health and money crises often bring unprepared seniors and their long-distance relatives to JFCS. 

Staffers answer questions and make referrals. “One strength of Sarasota-Manatee,” says Baron, “is that there are a lot of resources and many organizations,” from assisted living communities to the Senior Friendship Centers, from homecare agencies to Tidewell Hospice. To address cognitive decline, for instance, JFCS partners with the Roskamp Institute and the Gulf Coast chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. “We all work together,” says Baron.

JFCS itself offers individual and group counseling, as well as geriatric case management for far-flung families and caregiver support. If needed, a staffer will make a home visit to check on a senior’s safety and nutrition. But as much as possible, JFCS encourages clients to get out and join in. The weekly lunch meeting on the Fruitville campus, which combines information sharing and social gathering, has grown from “six ladies picked up in a Ford van” to today’s packed morning and afternoon sessions with speakers and discussions. Some people have been attending for a decade or more.

“These days people understand that mental health connects to emotional wellbeing and physical health,” says Baron. “Isolation and loneliness have an impact on mental health as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

Baron, a 15-year JFCS veteran, says one of her favorite calls came from a daughter, who marveled, “’I can’t believe my father goes to a group every week.’” Along with celebrating holidays and the like, participants talk about grief and loss and burdens. “The therapeutic piece is part of it,” says Baron. “People really do share.” 

Longevity has created a two-tiered senior population, and many of the “junior seniors” volunteer with the lunch program, finding a sense of purpose and learning about the road ahead. CEO Brown observes, “It’s so important to have that socialization, so that seniors feel a part of something.”

Guiding Reflection

JFCS therapists also meet one on one with clients dogged by stress, anxiety, and depression. “Many seniors say simply that they don’t feel well,” says Karen Lord, JFCS’s director of counseling services. “When we attend to their mental health, they sometimes see physical symptoms clear up.” Depression, staffers emphasize, is NOT a normal part of aging. It’s a treatable condition.

Seniors experience the same mental health issues as the rest of the population, says Lord. But their situation adds other strains and fears. Lord lays out a typical case study—a new widow, married more than 40 years, no longer able to drive, grown children busy with their own lives in another state. Her late husband managed the finances, and now she realizes that they weren’t as comfortable as she thought. “Now she’s wondering, ‘Do I pay the electric bill or water bill this month?’” 

JFCS helps clients deal with logistics of daily life and accompanying emotions. The goal for therapy: “process feelings and come up with a game plan to feel better.” Seniors who have finished careers and raised families need to identify skills, passions, and interests to address a prevalent complaint: lack of purpose. 

For some, volunteering fills a void. Others take up a new sport or enroll in a class. “There is a new face to the older population. It’s a very active community of seniors,” says Lord. Nonetheless, “self-esteem building is a major part of our work. We guide seniors to reflect on past accomplishments—and to recognize they’re still a valuable part of society, even though society doesn’t always do a good job of showing that.” 

Many seniors “grew up with that expectation that you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you need to be OK,” says Lord. When life slows down, some realize “that they’re not OK. I have a lot of respect for seniors ready to tackle traumas they’ve confronted in their life.” 

Sometimes seniors are grieving a child lost to illness or suicide, to a car accident or drug overdose. Sometimes they have to dig even deeper to uncover wounds. Often for the first time, clients may open up—about anti-Semitism, for instance, or sexual violence. In their generation, police often responded to domestic abuse by telling women to go home and “behave,” says Lord. “They’re working through trust issues.”

But clients’ willingness to confront old demons heartens JFCS therapists. “Some of the best therapy that goes on here is with seniors,” says Lord. “They’re ready; they’re in a place of wisdom. They’re ready to process all that.”

Lightening the Caregiver’s Load

For seniors and their families, knowing what’s not available can be just as important as knowing what is, according to Baron. Studies show that over 90% of people want to age in place, but Florida ranks 47th in the nation for state-funded in-home support. “There are a lot of misconceptions about what Medicare will pay for,” adds Baron. Most seniors don’t see themselves as needing to move into a life-care community, so by the time they do, “they’re not the picture of the people in the ad.” 

No one size fits all.  With increased longevity, sometimes coupled with debilitating conditions such as dementia or Parkinson’s disease, more and more family members, including men, have to step into the caregiving breach at some point. “We’re calling it an unexpected career,” says Baron. “We see it across the board socioeconomically.” She points to studies that show caregivers have a higher mortality rate than their peers without that responsibility. At JFCS, caring for seniors means caring for their caregivers as well. 

That commitment inspired the Rubins. The three years they spent looking after Ruthellen’s widowed mother, downsizing from her house to a condo, drained them. “No matter how much time you put in, it’s never enough,” says Rubin. “The need is so great at the end of life.” Along the way, she got to know her mom’s friends. “I can’t tell you how many didn’t have anyone,” she says.

Since her parents loved Longboat Key, Rubin is especially pleased that JFCS is collaborating with multiple partners to revamp the island’s Paradise Center into a comprehensive wellness facility. Seniors and their caregivers will find not just mah jongg and yoga but a medical clinic and JFCS senior programs—without the commute. The wing housing JFCS offices will bear her parents’ names.

A professional fundraiser for more than 25 years, Rubin appreciates the fit of her goals and the organization. “This was something I had come to really care about,” says Rubin. “JFCS did me a favor by letting our family feel really good about this legacy gift in this community.”