>> Yeah. The pavilion, I can see it.
>> Reporting from Appleton. I'm Zac Schultz for here
and. >> Now in the ongoing
struggle for more care programs for older adults
as well as young children, some communities in
Wisconsin are turning to an approach that combines the
two different age groups into the same programs. As
Steven Potter reports, the result has benefits for
both old and young, and the idea is gaining traction.
>> Hi, how are you today, Owen? Remember me? Yes you
are. >> Like elsewhere in the
country, Wisconsin is facing a crisis of care on
two fronts. First, the need for child care continues to
outpace availability. Providers say families of
30,000 children across the state can't find childcare.
This problem is particularly bad outside of
larger cities, around 70% of rural Wisconsin is
classified as a child care desert.
>> Textbook of a broken market. It's just not
working. >> There's also a
significant need for more care and more social
connection for older adults. >> Social isolation can
increase someone's risk for dementia, for heart disease,
diabetes, depression. >> Already under strain,
the elder care industry in Wisconsin is bracing for
increased demand as the number of residents 75
years old or older is expected to grow by more
than 40% by the end of the decade.
>> You need some help? >> Yeah.
>> Given that both the child care and elder care
industries in Wisconsin are facing similar struggles,
largely based on employee shortages, several
communities are bridging those gaps with something
called intergenerational care.
>> Intergenerational care. generations coming together
under one roof. You know, sometimes it might be in a
more health care based setting where there's a
nursing home and there's younger generations, like a
preschool in the same facility, or it can kind of
be a little bit less formal and be in community centers.
>> Or Suzanne Morley of the Wisconsin Institute for
Healthy Aging says intergenerational care
programs and facilities are increasing around the state.
>> In the past five six years, maybe even more and
longer. There's been a lot of interest in
intergenerational programing. There's a lot
of research out there that's been coming out
about the benefits of intergenerational
programing and the benefits not only for older adults,
but also for younger generations.
>> Intergenerational care activities vary from place
to place. One program may have older adults visiting
young children for reading time, and another program
may have high school students helping seniors
with technology. All of these programs bring these
groups together for social connection, play, and
learning. >> I think there's a lot of
momentum and excitement around intergenerational
programs. >> Paula Drew of the
Wisconsin Early Childhood Association has also
noticed an uptick in interest in
intergenerational care, and for good reason.
>> Yeah. >> I think both our
youngest and our oldest tend to sort of live in the
moment more than us, sort of in the middle. Our
seniors have a lot to give in terms of their skills,
and they can put those skills to to use with young
children who really are starving for that one on
one attention. And that does so much for their
brain development. >> And the older set also
sees a boost. >> For older adults.
There's lots of health benefits. There's research
that shows that can improve cognition. So helping with
things like staving off dementia and cognitive
impairment, it can also increase their
self-confidence and their self-efficacy if they're
interacting with younger generations, it can improve
health outcomes. It can actually lower blood
pressure. >> There are several
programs across Wisconsin already, and new ones are
on the way. >> I think this effort is
really just an extension of what we already know works,
and we already know has all these benefits.
>> In Walworth County. Maddie Sweetman is with the
Groundswell Collective, a grassroots organization
pushing for combined daycare and older adult
facility in an empty wing of a county run nursing
home. >> We all sort of know what
it feels like to have that isolation and be sort of
stuck where we are, and I think rural communities can
suffer extra from that. And so intergenerational care
like this would bridge some of those gaps.
>> The small rural community of Plymouth in
Sheboygan County has seen these benefits for more
than a decade. >> It's really about
bringing people together and creating connections
between people. >> Meghann Weeden runs
generations, a nonprofit community center. They're
geared towards seniors that partners with a daycare
center on site. >> Creating a community
inside the community where people can get support and
feel valued and seen and heard. It gives people a
reason to get out of bed in the morning.
>> And then you are going to make a Stein.
>> Doreen Salkowski is a retired teacher who now
volunteers at Generations Community Center.
>> I love it, I'm. I feel like I'm back in the
classroom again. Everybody benefits. The community
benefits. They're able to see the young people as
they're growing, interacting more with the
older people, respecting them more.
>> Isolation and loneliness is a nationwide, worldwide
issue. So by creating more intergenerational locations,
we're breaking down those barriers and just helping
everybody find those connections.