Volunteer Youth Visitation and Accident Prevention Program for the Isolated and Frail Elderly

摘要

The Volunteer Youth Visitation and Accident Prevention Program, developed to demonstrate how a community can recruit and train a corps of youth volunteers to implement a friendly visiting and accident prevention program for the isolated and frail elderly, is described. Project participants consisted of local aging agencies, the community school system and the business community. The project design was based on three major activities: the development of a curriculum, the training and mobilization of a group of volunteers, and evaluation of safety measures. Volunteers were recruited by school personnel, trained in accordance with the curriculum, and assigned a caseworker and a client to visit; they were supervised throughout the project. Results indicate that the volunteers' attitudes changed after training and again after visiting the clients; the volunteers became more positive, and more aware of the elderly's problems and needs.