Importance of Intergenerational Relationships Stressed at Aging Conference

During her keynote address at the Elderboom Conference at the Marymount campus on Nov. 20, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the Medicare bill, which was approved by Congress shortly thereafter, saying that it will take away benefits and increase the cost of healthcare for seniors.

“It is immoral not to take care of the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor in a country as rich as ours,” she told approximately 700 people in Spellman Auditorium. “We should do everything we can do, together, to prepare for the elderboom.”

The conference, sponsored by the Westchester Department of Senior Programs and Services, the Westchester Public/Private Partnership for Aging Services and Marymount College of Fordham University, focused on the growing elderly population, how to meet their needs and the role of intergenerational relationships in these efforts.

Mae Carpenter, commissioner of the Department of Senior Programs and Services and conference co-chair, said that approximately one in five people in Westchester county is over the age of 60, and that the total senior population in the area will soon increase by 100,000, as baby boomers age. She called on participants to prepare for the aging population with compassion.

The empathy of younger generations is important to the county’s plans, said Mary Ann Quaranta, D.S.W., provost of Marymount College of Fordham University and conference co-chair, after the event.

“The baby boomers will soon be the elderly. They can begin to see their future, and they need to prepare for it,” she said. “There’s a host of issues—financial, social and emotional—that must be addressed. The working population has to be willing to contribute … resources to address these issues.”

During the conference, Clinton referred to an “intergenerational compact” that requires younger generations to support the elderly. She called for an agenda on aging that “keeps faith with the promises we made to be there for our parents.”

Clinton also addressed issues of concern locally. Citing a survey, she said Westchester’s elderly residents report transportation, housing, legal and financial, health and well being, and long-term care services as their top five issues. She said she has been working hard to address these concerns, particularly long-term care.

“I support a comprehensive long-term care system, and assistance and respite for those 25 million caregivers,” Clinton said. In 2002, she introduced bipartisan legislation to provide relief to family caregivers, an issue she said was especially relevant to women, who traditionally shoulder most of this responsibility.

In her presentation, panelist Irene Gutheil, D.S.W., director of Fordham’s Ravazzin Center on Aging, talked about the dearth of healthcare workers nationally and locally who specialize in aging, despite the fact that most report working with older people. She advocated for schools of social work to infuse information about aging into coursework and to make aid available to encourage students to focus on aging.

She said intergeneration programs provide a critical base for developing future healthcare professionals. “Students at our school who specialize in aging say it was because of a significant, meaningful relationship they had with an older person,” she said.

Other panelists included experts who discussed such issues as the fiscal challenges of living longer; the changes that must happen in the workplace to address both older employees and the generations of workers who care for elderly family members; and the special concerns of a growing elderly Hispanic population.

Lois T. Bronz, chair of the Westchester County board of legislators, closed the program, calling on the community to develop an agenda on aging immediately. “The policy decisions, the support for a moral imperative … cannot be delayed,” she said.

— Maja Tarateta

Marymount Provost Mary Ann Quaranta, D.S.W., Sen. Hillary Clinton and Mae Carpenter, commissioner of the Department of Senior Programs and Services