Intergenerational Program Database

The programs match youth between the ages of 6 and 14 with Seniors living in an Independent Living Senior Community. They meet once a week for a couple of hours each to share experiences and learn new things. This program is part of the overall youth mentoring programs of Big Brothers Big Sisters and helps multiple generations with the match. Statistics show that children spending a year in the program show stronger positive decision-making skills, strong resistance to the use of drugs and alcohol, more respect for peers and those in authority, better grades and more activity in extra-curricular activities. At the same time, the senior population is seeing strong positive effects also. They report being more active and involved, build a sense of worth and their overall outlook is strong and positive. Through such programs, we hope to work together to build strength in our communities while we share of our time and talents to help others.

Volunteers for Community Impact sponsors the Foster Grandparent Program, RSVP, and VCI Cyber-Seniors throughout Central Florida, allowing adults ages 55 and older to connect with young people through a variety of sources. The Foster Grandparent Program and RSVP create the opportunity for adults ages 55 and over to volunteer as little as 30 minutes up to 25 hours every week with special needs and at risk youth helping them learn to read, and stay on target for graduation. VCI Cyber-Seniors connects adults with a young mentor who teaches them how to reconnect to their friends, family, and community through technology. Be a Hero... Volunteer!

When children can’t be with their parents, they should be with their family. Foster Kinship is a local nonprofit exclusively focused on serving kinship families and the over 19,000 children in kinship care in Nevada. To improve outcomes for children in kinship care, Foster Kinship empowers kinship caregivers to provide the safest, most stable and permanent placements for the children in their home. Foster Kinship provides three free programs for kinship caregivers: support, advocacy and case management. By helping to “keep home in the family” for these vulnerable children, Foster Kinship envisions a safe and healthy childhood for ALL children in kinship care.

Our Grandfriends Intergenerational Volunteer Program is one of the longest, continuously operating, school-based intergenerational programs in Illinois. The program began in 1991. Our program matches local older adult volunteers with kindergarten-fifth grade classrooms. Volunteers, in collaboration with the classroom teachers, work with students in areas of reading, writing and math. Frequently Grandfriends share their own life experiences, which brings history to life. Additionally, volunteers have helped in the school office, the library and with the art and music teachers. We are a very culturally diverse community and our Grandfriends help students as they learn to communicate in English. Enduring relationships have developed between teachers, school staff and our wonderful volunteers. The volunteers love watching the children grow throughout the school year. Our Grandfriends often serve as "ambassadors at large," sharing the insights they have gained by being in the school throughout the wider community. Parents, students and school staff have all come to recognize and value the incredible resource our Grandfriends have become.

Our program shares a building with a Head Start program that serves around 78 children. Throughout the year they come over and do projects with our seniors. We also have middle school and high school children to do service hours for their graduation requirements and they work directly with the seniors that attend our Adult Day Program. We have school-age children that work for us on a summer youth program to help their low-income families. Our program is the center of many generations and we are proud to say that our seniors of our rural community and also our youth benefit from coming together and learning lessons to take with them as they become important citizens of our country.

Grands As Parents Inc. was founded in 1996 and is compromised of grandparent caregivers and relatives who have found themselves in parenting roles for their grandchildren (in some cases great children). These grandparents have been forced from the realm of retirement to become sole caretakers for these energetic and needy children. Grands As Parents provides support services and advocates for the rights of the heads of such families and is committed to providing assistance to these caregivers and their entire household for which they are responsible. GAPS is designed to address the special needs and concerns of the grandparents who have specific issues (whatever the reason) and who are temporary or permanent caretakers of their grandchildren, however, this is not a requirement for participation. This a non-profit organization is administrated by volunteers and has a board of directors. This organization willingly collaborates with other nonprofit community organizations in the concept that it takes a village to raise a child. GAPS provides the following services/ referrals - Crisis/Stress Management, Legal Services, Housing, Food, Clothing, Human Resources.

Support for grandfamilies: grandparents raising grandchildren. Provides resources for grandparents and grandchildren: support groups; counseling; caregiver training; case management; respite. Also provides resources to help grandparents obtain temporary guardianship of grandchildren.

Hope & A Future currently operate a licensed Adult Family Home for frail seniors with live in interegenerational staff. We sponsor activities open to the surrounding community--including a monthly pot-luck and house concerts, quilting and exercise groups. Attendee age range is infants to 100 year olds. Grounds, garden and construction volunteer opportunities brought over 300 people of all ages in 2015. We are activily working on plans to build housing for independent seniors and young families interested in mentoring and support. This development is for people interested in intentional community and includes shared green space and a community building offering intergenerational services and fun! Here everyone helps and is helped while living, playing, working and dying in community. Keyword: Shared Site

Contributions of Different Cultures are half day and whole day events where students and seniors are brought together to share and learn from each other. Through hands-on activities, music, and food preparation students are taught an oral history lesson. Folk Fairs help to demonstrate and preserve our community and appreciation of the past. Hundreds of adults and thousands of students participate in our Folk Fairs every year.

This is a summer collaborative class including high school students from Milwaukee Public Schools and adult clients at St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus. Together students and adults focus on creating art, utilizing technology, interviewing skills, and building relationships between generations. High school students introduce the adults to the basics of computer use and the Internet. In addition, they interview clients to gather life stories that are translated into art projects and memoir books which are given to each client participating in the program. The students get a chance to practice face-to-face communication with people from different cultures and generations. Adults get a chance to tell their life stories and share memories that serve has history lessons for the students. Keyword: Shared Site