Do you have an older parent who lives alone and needs a caregiver?
Are you a senior citizen in need of transportation to and from medical appointments?
Maybe you’re an older resident struggling to make ends meet each month and could use a little help, whether it be meals or utility payments.
Yountville residents aged 60 or older now have someone who can answer a multitude of questions and direct them to available resources.
And the service is free.
Since April, Napa social worker Karen Lustig has been holding office hours in Yountville every Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. as a team member of Providence Community Health’s Information and Assistance Program, or IAP.
The service is paid for through federal funding under the Older Americans Act of 1964, as well as grants from Kaiser and the Community Health Foundation, and is distributed by the Napa-Solano Area Agency on Aging.
The idea of IAP is to provide vital information for older adults and their families to help meet their basic needs: Housing, care-giving, transportation and food.
“Our goal is to support the transitions of aging and help older adults maintain their independence for as long as possible with the help of our community partners and local agencies,” Lustig told the Sun this week during an interview in her “office,” a small room off the Steve Rogers Art Gallery at Yountville Community Hall. “The hope also is that I can find gaps in services and then help advocate to get services in those gaps.”
As the IAP’s UpValley social worker, Lustig also spends one day a week in Angwin, St. Helena and Calistoga.
She receives calls, she said, from seniors and families asking all kinds of questions, and she’s happy to answer them or send them to the person who can.
“Someone might call our main number and say ‘I can’t afford a new roof. What do I do?’ ‘I can’t afford my PG&E bill.’ ‘I’ve just stopped being able to make meals. What do I do?’” Lustig said. “So I’ll take those questions and I’ll try to link them up with services, if they’re available, like Meals on Wheels or financial emergency assistance programs that might help pay for a new roof or help pay for that enormous PG&E bill – that kind of assistance.”
Lusting said many times, a resident calls with one issue and during the course of their conversation, she finds out that they have other needs that can be met through a partner program or agency.
“Maybe we end up working with Share the Care to help provide a wheelchair ramp,” she said. “They’ll provide free grab bars and handrails to a certain extent. So things like that.”
If someone’s need requires more than just a phone call, Lustig and the other IAP social workers will still help. If someone is overwhelmed trying to apply for Medi-Cal online, for example, there are programs that help them with that, such as Community Health Initiative.
“Or, we’ll go there and we’ll help them fill out the Medi-Cal application or the IHHS application or the Meals on Wheels application, and then we’ll follow up and ask them ‘How’d that work? Did you ever get Medi-Cal or sign a release of information? We’ll go talk to Medi Cal and see how that’s going.”
Through IAP, Lustig said, people with greater needs may receive light case management, which includes a basic needs assessment, development of a care plan, coordination of services with providers or agencies, and follow-up and reassessment as required.
The IAP program manages a registry of vetted caregivers whose rates are typically lower than those offered by caregiver agencies, said Lustig.
“For a caregiver to be included in our registry, they must provide a comprehensive application with supporting documentation to us, get background clearances, and receive a caregiver permit through Napa County,” Lustig said. “Once everything is complete, we will match caregivers appropriately with seniors in the community who are in need of support.”
In addition to Lustig, there are two other social workers and a program manager working out of the Napa office.
Collabria Care Hospice has been absorbed into Providence Community Health Napa Valley so those services are still available as well as a day program for older adults in Napa.
A resource guide listing hundreds of agencies and organizations for older adults is available at the Yountville Parks and Recreation office or from Lustig.
To make an appointment, call (707) 253-4248.
