Here’s What Happens When You Combine a Day Care and a Nursing

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Around the world, more centers are bringing together seniors and toddlers.

A daycare has started at a UK nursing home. | SWNS

Every midmorning, teachers at the ONEgeneration child care facility get ready for their daily visitors.

The people dropping by aren’t parents touring preschools. They’re seniors who attend the facility’s
adult day care program, held within the same building.

Each day, the center, located in Van Nuys, California, brings the two populations together for a host
of activities designed specifically for children and seniors. These types of interactions serve a
purpose. They’re collectively called “intergenerational programming.”

“Cooking, music, movement — you name it, they do it,” Kristine Vardanyan, director of
ONEgeneration, told Healthline.

In the late morning, the seniors — many with varying stages of diminished cognition — head over to
the different classrooms for an activity. Some days, the groups participate in music and movement.
Other times they go out to the yard and blow bubbles or go on nature walks.

Vardanyan’s team of teachers takes great pains to plan out the details. Safety is the number one
priority. For example, they need to make sure that the chairs all have armrests, because some
seniors need them to transition from sitting to standing and vice versa.

Developmental needs are also carefully considered. On days that the two groups cook together, the
recipes are usually easy to follow.

“Quesadillas, yogurt parfaits, fruit salad,” Vardanyan said. “We keep it simple.”

Roughly 160 adults are enrolled at ONEgeneration, although on any given day, about 60 attend the
program. The child care facility has approximately 10 classrooms for children, from infants to age 6.

At ONEgeneration seniors help toddlers with activities like painting. | ONEgeneration Childcare

The rise of intergenerational care

ONEgeneration is part of a growing movement to promote intergenerational activities between the

young and old.

While previous generations may have lived under the same roof or in the same town with younger
generations of their family, that’s not the case today. Many extended families now live in different
regions of the country. Additionally, people are living longer and may require more care than their
family can provide, even if they live close by.And a growing body of new researchTrusted Source
illustrates just how damaging isolation and loneliness can be.

One way to fight that isolation is intergenerational programming. It brings together people from
different age populations, usually through activities that focus on young children and older adults.
It’s different from multigenerational programming, where different classes are offered for a variety
of populations.

Americans are living longer and healthier lives. Intergenerational advocates believe that we can only
be successful in the face of our complex future if generational diversity is regarded as a national
asset and fully leveraged.

There are many different forms of intergenerational programming, from seniors volunteering in
schools to help children read to teenagers teaching a technology class at a senior center. A number
of facilities across the globe take that concept even further.

In the United Kingdom, the Bridge House nursing home in Abingdon, Oxon, hosts a day care with a
three-month waitlist.

In Seattle, Washington, the Providence Mount St. Vincent, an elder adult living facility, shares space
with Mount’s Intergenerational Learning Center, a licensed nonprofit child care center and
preschool. The two populations meet regularly.

The Jenks elementary school in Oklahoma is housed in a large complex that includes a senior living
facility. Seniors here have multiple opportunities to volunteer in the classrooms.

When the community in Swampscott, Massachusetts, needed a new high school and senior center,
they decided to build a structure that could hold both. Today, both populations share the space and
often engage in joint activities.

Right now, there are approximately 105 shared spaces in the United States, according to
Generations United. Activists would like to see more, but the concept is still foreign to many in this
country.

In contrast, the United Kingdom has pledged to develop some 500 shared spaces with
intergenerational programing by 2020.

Challenges of caring for both the old and young

“Intergenerational programming is intentionally mixing the ages,” Donna Butts, executive director of
Generations United, told Healthline.

The organization champions intergenerational public policy in the United States. They released a
report this week that says the time has come for the concept of intergenerational programing at
shared spaces, such as ONEgeneration.

The report, coordinated by Generations United and Ohio State University and supported by the
Eisner Foundation, highlights a number of programs around the country that embrace shared spaces
and intergenerational programming.

The report goes over the challenges behind creating such programs and compiled the findings of two
surveys. One of the surveys asked the general population about the concept of intergenerational
shared spaces, while the other asked programs already in place to provide details about what’s going
on at their sites.
“It paints a big picture nationally and then more granularly at what’s happening in these programs,”
Sheri Steinig, special projects director at Generations United, told Healthline.

Nearly two-thirds of those who responded to the survey think that senior centers, schools, and
universities should create opportunities for youth and older adults to interact, while 89 percent
believe serving both youth and older adults at the same location is a good use of resources. Almost
80 percent believe the government should invest in programs that bring those groups together.

“There’s a convergence of opportunity at hand, brought about by a variety of factors. The demand
for quality children and youth services compounded with the increasing need for creative older adult
programs creates an environment ripe for innovative age-integrated care,” states the report.

Butts notes that the United States has made great progress with multigenerational facilities, but
we’ve yet to truly embrace intergenerational programming with the same verve.

“We haven’t really moved from multigenerational to intergenerational,” she said. “It’s really a
matter of funders, policymakers, and local leaders.”

Steinig says they’ve talked to numerous people across the country who are interested in creating
intergenerational shared spaces, but it’s often the funding streams that make it challenging.

Regulations tethered to both populations are also some of the biggest hurdles. Preschools have
specific building codes, and senior centers have their own as well. Finding common ground to
construct a site where both populations can prosper together isn’t easy, but it can be done.

“The programs that have been successful have basically sat down with both sides to work it out,”
Steinig said.

Looking forward, she adds that the organization will begin to strategize the most effective
opportunities for policy change and support.

“The time is right to find ways to connect our generations,” Steinig said.

Still learning

At ONEgeneration, Vardanyan says there are clear examples of how the young and the old can learn
and benefit from one another.

“The children learn about diversity and empathy. They are being exposed to different kinds of
people,” she said.

In turn, the adults get a real kick out of hanging out with such life forces.

“They say the kids bring so much life and energy,” she said.
What’s a nursing home combined with a childcare center? A hopeful model
for the future of aging
Imagine a place for the elderly that’s also filled with the sounds of kids playing. Marc Freedman goes
to Singapore to investigate a new model for intergenerational living.

Sister Geraldine Tan, an energetic woman in her 60s, speaks rapidly and is given to sweeping
gestures. She wears the flowing white robes of the Canossian Daughters of Charity, and they
threaten to engulf her small frame. But Sister Geraldine — trained in the hospice movement in the
UK and now the executive director of the St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged and Hospice in Singapore
— is not easily overwhelmed.

St. Joseph’s is not your typical nursing home. It’s striking, with tropical flora, open pavilions and airy
rooms, and large, accommodating some 400 older people. Natural light and trade winds flow
through its floors.

But the people it serves aren’t all elderly. The facility includes a childcare center for about 50
children, ages two months to six years. At the center of St. Joseph’s courtyard is an intergenerational
playground, home to spontaneous interactions between the older people at the nursing home and
the little ones at the childcare center.

Singapore’s leaders see the generations growing apart. They’re eager to bring them back together,
to find new ways to do old things.

The neighborhood isn’t typical, either. St. Joseph’s is in Jurong West, an industrial area gone high
tech. Google Singapore is next door; on the other side is the Boys’ Home, which houses young
people who have been in trouble with the authorities. Across the street is a primary school. The
massive Supply Chain City building — a facility “that serves as Asia’s supply-chain nerve center” — is
less than 100 yards away. St. Joseph’s sits in the middle, a bastion of humanity.

While many residents share a strong cultural respect for their elders, Singapore’s leaders see the
generations growing apart. They’re eager to bring them back together, to find new ways to do old
things. This fits Sister Geraldine’s vision. She is determined to create an environment that
encompasses the full “circle of life,” as she puts it, with children at its center. “They remind us of the
purpose of life and of the importance of play and simplicity,” she says.

“There is birth and there is death,” says Sister Geraldine. “At both ends, we all need someone to
tend to us.”

Today, one in eight people in Singapore is aged 65 and older. By 2030, it will be one in four.

Just as the childcare center aims to foster bonds that benefit young and old, students at the primary
school visit regularly, and some of them are being mentored by the seniors. Boys’ Home residents
operate a coffee cart in the courtyard, delivering drinks to the older people at St. Joseph’s —
another way Sister Geraldine is instigating meaningful, cross-generational relationships.

Sister Geraldine and St. Joseph’s are all part of Singapore’s scheme to deal with their aging
population. The wealthy city-state has put forth a national plan to invest $3 billion Singapore
($2.1billion in USD) and become the envy of other aging societies. It’s a staggering investment given
Singapore’s population size: just under four million permanent residents, about the size of Chicago.

Like many countries in Asia and the rest of the world, Singapore is aging fast. In 1970, one in 31
Singaporeans was 65 or older; today, it’s one in eight. By 2030, it will be one in four, or from about
440,000 people over 65 to more than 900,000 by 2030. “Aging is really the single most important
demographic shift that will affect the future of Singapore,” says Amy Khor, the government’s senior
minister of state for health.

Singapore officials are promoting “3Gen flats” to help older people, younger people, and those in
the middle live in close proximity.

As in much of the world, the change is caused by increasing longevity and decreasing birth rates. In
February 2016, Khor announced the Action Plan for Successful Ageing, an ambitious collection of
some 70 initiatives covering a wide array of issues, including health care, volunteerism, employment,
housing, transportation and protection for vulnerable elders. A leitmotif is engaging older people to
support the next generation behind them.

To bring the generations together, Singapore is launching programs to help older people retool for
second acts, to recruit young people to teach technology and social media skills to older folks, and to
help community organizations better use senior volunteers. Officials are promoting “3Gen flats” to
help older people, younger people, and those in the middle live in close proximity. One of the Plan’s
most striking features is the creation of a “Kampong for All Ages.” Kampong is the Malay word for
village, and it envisions a future Singapore built around a cherished element of the past: the
multigenerational village.

The Plan also funds a $200 million Singapore ($140 million in USD) National Innovation Challenge,
toward research on promising models and incentives to encourage more ideas for a
multigenerational society.

The idea is to use community design to re-create natural opportunities for cross-generational
support — to move from program to proximity, from concept to reality.

I sat down with two young architects at the CDB, the ministry that oversees land use in Singapore,
where space is at an absolute premium. They showed me plans for the Admiralty Kampong, a
development created to encourage connection between the generations. It will contain a ground-
floor plaza with a grocery store and eateries, a daycare center, assisted-living services, a day center
for elders with more extensive needs, and lots of opportunities for socializing.

The idea is to use community design to re-create natural opportunities for cross-generational
support — to move from program to proximity, from concept to reality. The conscious effort is all
the more striking in an Asian society where interaction and care between young and old, especially
in families, occurred naturally for much of its history. But in our fast-paced, highly mobile, globally-
oriented 21st-century world, there’s a need to find new ways to cultivate these time-honored
values.

I admit being taken with Singapore’s plan, but my burning question on arrival and throughout my
visit was: Is it real or a mirage? Some experiences were underwhelming. At one point, I visited the
nation’s oldest center that brings together children, adolescents and older adults. The program’s
diversity was impressive, mixing many different ethnic backgrounds, as well as ages. Yet the contact
between generations was mostly superficial — there was a patina of closeness without much in the
way of genuine interaction.

Scarcity of space could have led to conflict; instead, it’s prompting creative thinking about how to
wring the most social value from limited square footage.

Still, those experiences were the exception for me. In Singapore, for the most part, I witnessed a
sense of common purpose among people to realize the plan’s goals, a shared vision that was more
significant in some ways than the sums being spent (although I can’t get over my envy of the
money).

Two lessons stood out for me from my trip. First, not having much land can be a powerful impetus
for change. Scarcity of space could have led to conflict; instead, it’s prompting creative thinking
about how to combine institutional purposes to wring the most social value from limited square
footage. Second, I found the instinct to combine old and new — a new-way-to-do-old-things
approach — everywhere.

On my final day, I visited a church initiative that was a faith-based bookend to the St. Joseph’s
experience that started my trip. St. John’s–St. Margaret’s is a well-established Anglican congregation
near the National University of Singapore. The church is in the midst of creating a large senior living
facility and early childhood center, having broken ground on it in mid-2017.

When complete, the project may be even more impressive than St. Joseph’s. This redesign was
prompted by the expiration of the church’s lease on government-owned land. In order to stay on its
prized plot, St. John’s–St. Margaret’s was required to “intensify” its use of the land — to do more
social good. The congregation decided not only to build a nursing home and senior programs but
also to find ways to simultaneously support young children. I love the notion of intensifying the land;
it’s another way of saying every dollar should be spent (at least) twice.

When complete, St. John’s-St. Margaret’s will contain a nursing home, a senior center, and an early
childhood center. Its name? Project Spring-Winter.

For insights, the St. John’s–St. Margaret’s team headed to the US and visited facilities that bring the
generations together for mutual benefit, including the Providence Mount St. Vincent
Intergenerational Learning Center in Seattle (the subject of the 2017 documentary The Growing
Season). Another source of inspiration was a passage from Zechariah 8:4–5 that describes the
renewed city of Jerusalem as a cross-generational paradise: “Old men and old women shall again sit
in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And … the city shall be full
of boys and girls playing in its streets.”

When open in 2021, St. John’s–St. Margaret’s will consist of a 273-person nursing-home facility, a
senior center for 100 older people, and an early childhood center for 200 children. The name for the
initiative? Project Spring-Winter.

When I visited the congregation members leading this effort, they told me of an unanticipated side
benefit. While working on the plans, they realized the church itself had become age-segregated —
for example, there were children’s services and adult services, often held at the same time in
separate rooms. Prompted by the research that’s gone into Project Spring-Winter, they’re thinking
how best to age-integrate the congregation.

Congregant Sherlyn Lee, one of the Project Spring-Winter leaders, told me that she hopes this new
effort will restore a sense of the “circle of life” — both at the church and in Singapore. I was struck
by the symmetry: Sister Geraldine and Sherlyn opened and closed my trip with the same beautiful
phrase.

Start a Playgroup in a Retirement Home

JUNE 17, 2015 / LAURA GRACE WELDON

seniors and kids, retirement home preschool,

I started a playgroup, years ago, that met in a nursing home. Later, when I wrote an article offering
six ways we can bypass today’s age-segregation to more fully involve children in their communities, I
started the article with the tale of that playgroup. Readers keep asking for more details so they can
organize something similar. Here’s my tale again, this time with some helpful hints.

Surely my baby was as good as a dog.

I’d read that nursing home residents benefited enormously from contact with therapy dogs. During
and after dog visits these elders were more alert and happier. So I figured, why not bring my baby to
a nursing home?

Initially I’d thought about going room to room with my baby for one-on-one visits. But as I sat at a
LeLeche meeting, it occurred to me that more babies might offer a bigger boost.

So I contacted a nursing home around the corner to ask. The administrator had never heard of such
an idea but she was wildly enthusiastic. She referred me to the home’s activity director to start
planning. That was the easiest part.

Then I starting talking friends with babies into forming a nursing home-based playgroup for our
infants and toddlers. It took a LOT of convincing on my part to get them to agree. They were afraid
of germs, smells, and their baby’s reactions to people with obvious disabilities.

I wondered about those problems too, particularly the germs. I know that some pretty virulent
infections can get passed around in such facilities. So I talked a local store into donating a large
carpet remnant for our little ones to crawl and play on. Between visits, the nursing home could roll it
up for storage. It was a sort of “safe zone’ so parents felt their kids wouldn’t be exposed to germs or
unwanted touching by the seniors.

I also told the staff that I’d call each day before a scheduled playgroup to ensure there weren’t any
colds, flu, or other infections going around. And of course, asked that any individual residents who
seemed ill would not attend. Parents also agreed to skip a session if they or their little ones seemed
at all ill.
The first few playgroup sessions tested us. Not the nursing home residents, but the parents. There
were, quite honestly, some seniors whose disabilities seemed a bit scary to us at first. But the babies
didn’t care. Safely in a mom’s arms or in her lap they smiled, cooed, and waved to the residents with
complete acceptance.

Parents brought a few toys each time and we all sat on the carpet with our babies. At first we felt a
little like a zoo exhibit with a ring of wheelchairs around us, but that feeling went away. The elders
were clearly delighted simply to see and hear babies.

There were certainly problems getting our group established. We started off with three mothers,
one grandmother, and four babies. That’s actually a good number, although to keep the playgroup
going we’d need enough people so that absences by one or two members wouldn’t whittle the
session down too far.

Quite a few of the parents who initially said they’d attend just couldn’t bring themselves to show up.
Only after they heard some glowing reports did a few of them give it a try. Honestly, such a
playgroup isn’t for everyone. There’s a distinct pleasure in a playgroup itself, but parents who stayed
committed also looked at our sessions as volunteer work.

We met regularly at that nursing home for several years. We held up picture books and read aloud
to an audience old and young. We sang songs, played clapping games, and built block towers. Our
babies grew into toddlers, elders and staff became our friends. Residents’ families and staff
members often told us that our visits stimulated memories, generated activity, even inspired people
who were mostly mute to say a few words. One woman who had refused to eat, doing little more
than cry since her stroke, started eating again after spending the morning with our playgroup.

We were awed that the simple presence of babies made a difference. Just sitting on the carpet
playing with our children helped people whose once full lives were now constricted. We benefited
too. We learned the value of advice given by people older than our grandparents. We noticed how
completely our toddlers accepted the physical and mental differences around them with natural
grace. And we gained a sense of connection across the generations, a sense that’s far too rare in a a
disengaged culture.

Tips
I had a ready pool of potential parents in my Le Leche group, but you can post information about the
idea to all sorts of places, from your food co-op to house of worship. Try a local parent group, start a
playgroup Meetup, find a chapter of the Holistic Moms Network or Moms Club.

Don’t be afraid to start a playgroup with only a friend or two. It’ll grow. Once you’re comfortable and
have established a routine, start sharing your experiences on social media. And don’t forget
traditional media. Our local paper wrote a short piece about our nursing home-based playgroup and
ran a great picture of a profoundly wrinkled lady smiling at a baby. After that ran we had up to 12
parents who came to our sessions (the carpet piece was barely big enough).
 You may prefer to organize a playgroup at an assisted living facility or senior center rather than a
nursing home. These elders are healthier and much more able to engage in conversation with the
kids.

Don’t limit yourself to the concept of a baby/toddler playgroup. A nearby senior center or assisted
living facility may agree to set up any number of programs. Here are a few ideas.

I write in Free Range Learning about several initiatives such as a skills clinic where seniors offer
workshops to kids, and Girlfriend Circle where a girls attend a monthly tea party with seniors.

Set up co-learning events, where kids and seniors together learn something new to them like
whittling, cartooning, or pot throwing.

You might also start a program for preteens and teens to teach their elders tech skills, from
downloading music to mastering a new smart phone.

Right now a documentary about a preschool housed in a retirement home is in the works. Present
Perfect is still raising funds on Kickstarter for post production.

A senior retirement community not far from me offers a free apartment to music students who
agree to offer concerts. It’s working beautifully

Elderly people and preschool children have a lot to offer

one another
 Posted by Evan Kidd |
 Monday 2 September 2019, 11:35 AM (EST)

o
o

In the ABC's new series, Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds, ten preschool children and 11 residents
of a retirement home take part in a bold intergenerational experiment.
Over seven weeks, they engage in the same kinds of activities children do in preschool.
The benefits for the elderly of programs like this are well known. Participants in similar programs
have reported improvements in both mental health and physical wellbeing.
The reasons for the benefits are fairly obvious: children bring a sense of play and wonder to our worlds,
and their boundless energy no doubt means that older adults build up fitness just to keep up!

But what might be the benefits for the children? Or more broadly, how do children benefit from interacting
with older people? It turns out we know less about this topic than one might expect.

One study found that after taking part in an intergenerational care program, preschool children developed
increasingly positive attitudes towards the elderly.
While this is a nice outcome, it doesn’t really tell us if children benefit beyond attitude change. To
understand the benefits of intergenerational relationships, we need to look at a more frequent scenario:
grandparent–grandchild relations.

Seniors reminisce about items that were once commonplace for older Australians but are unknown to children today.

Grandparents have a lot to offer children

Grandparents often play an important and unique role in children’s lives.

A 2009 report from the Australian Institute of Family Studies showed that a large majority of parents
believed their child was “close” or “very close” with their grandparents.
These relationships are hugely important to children. Psychologists refer to them as "attachment bonds" –
important and enduring emotional ties we form with significant others.
We first develop an attachment to our primary caregiver, which for most for us is our mother. This is why,
for example, toddlers cry when they're separated from their mothers, who are a source of security and
comfort in a big and sometimes scary world.

But children develop attachments to many other important people in their lives. It takes a village to raise a
child, or so the saying goes, and different adults play different roles in a child’s development. That’s a
good thing – children have a lot to learn, and they learn best when they're learning from people who know
a thing or two about the world.

Grandparents are members of this special group. For example, one famous study found that children turn
to grandparents for emotional warmth and to enhance their self-esteem – two very important components
of a healthy upbringing.
Remembering the good old days can keep loneliness and depression at bay.

Grandparent day care has big advantages

Significant social and economic developments over the past few generations has meant a large portion of
childcare now happens outside the home.

In Australia, one in five children below school age (five years and under) are regularly cared for by a
grandparent.
Interestingly, grandparent day care appears to have some real advantages over formal day care. Compared
to preschool teachers, grandparents report warmer relationships and communicate better with the children
they care for – they also report lower levels of conflict.
So children benefit a lot when grandparents play a significant caring role in their lives. This is also seems
to alleviate parental stress.
It's important to challenge minds and bodies, not only for the development of young children but also for health of older people.
However, how does caring for young children affect grandparents? The answer, of course, is complicated.

While they are by no means a homogenous group, grandparents report that they find caring for their
grandchildren both rewarding and challenging.
Many grandparents relish the opportunity to play a significant role in their grandchildren’s upbringing, but
this often comes at the expense of their own lives and interests. This suggests grandparents need to find the
right balance between family obligations and their independence.
Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds is a unique social experiment that brings together elderly people
and a group of four-year-olds.