Experience Counts: Innovative Programs for the Elderly in Israel That Can Benefit Americans

Copyright

Introduction

This Report was Prepared By

Acknowledgments

What is the JDC-Brookdale Institute?

Executive Summary

I. Overview of Services for the Aged in Israel

II. Long-Term Care

• Regulatory System to Assess Quality of Care in Nursing Homes and Old Age Homes
• Financing Community-Based Long-Term Care for Severely Disabled Elderly
• Shmuel HaRofe Geriatric Medical Center: Continuity of Care in a Geriatric Teaching Hospital
• Social Model of Day Care for the Disabled
• Day Care Centers
• Special Day Care Programs for the Cognitively Impaired

III. Voluntarism And Productive Aging

• Nationwide Volunteer Program to Provide Medical Equipment and Assistive Devices to the Elderly (Yad Sarah)
• Volunteer-Based Counseling Centers and Home Visitation Service for the Elderly
• Counseling Centers
• Friendly Visiting
• Identification of Older Persons at Risk
• Use of Volunteers in Monitoring Quality of Care Under the Community Long-Term Care Insurance Law
• Neighborhood-Based Volunteer Program for the Elderly
• A Community-Wide Program to Promote Voluntarism by the Elderly (PITGAM)
• Lifeline for the Elderly

IV. Housing and Aging in Place

• Gilo Multigenerational Sheltered Housing Project
• Supportive Neighborhoods for Senior Citizens

V. Educational Programs

• Bar-Ilan Brookdale Program in Applied Gerontology
• Senior Auditors Program
• Center for Third Age Learning
• Computers for the Third Age
• Seniors as Researchers in the Study of Aging
• Housebound Learning Reaching Out to Older Shut-Ins
• Two-Year Senior Leadership Certificate Program
• Educational Curriculum: "Like a Planted Tree"
• Audiovisual Center for the Elderly
• Training Films and Television Programs
• Lending Libraries
• Mobile Audiovisual Unit
• Workshops and Film Festivals for Professionals in Aging
• Serving the Schools
• Community Communications
• Community Television
• Close Circuit Television in Homes for the Aged

VI. Planning and Development of Services

• Developing Master Plans for Services for the Elderly at the Local Level
• Coordination in the Planning and Development of Services at the National and Local Level: Partnerships between the Governmental and Voluntary Sectors
• National Level: JDC-ESHEL (The Association for the Planning and Development of Services in Israel)
• Local Associations for the Elderly
• Linking Policymaking and Research on Aging: The JDC-Brookdale Institute, a Partnership between the Government and the Voluntary Sector