California's Aging Opportunity

Recommendation II. Weave Senior Service into State Programs — Ideas for Taking Action

The Challenge

• Volunteer and service roles in state programs: Although service happens at the local level, older adults have the interest and experience to volunteer in many issue areas that are closely linked to state programs and policy. Examples include K-12 education, after-school programs, community-based care giving for older adults, disaster preparedness and response, state parks support, and other human services, education and environmental programs. State agencies need more comprehensive planning for involving older adult volunteers in the wide range of state-run and state-funded programs that tackle high priority community needs in California.
  
  
• Relationship with professional staff: Well-defined and implemented volunteer roles need to complement, not displace, professionals and other paid workers in service fields. State guidelines could be an important ingredient to ensure this complementary relationship between older adult volunteers and state-funded workers.

Taking Action

Survey state agencies: In order to identify state-run and state-supported programs that match with the interests and experience of older Californians, a more comprehensive study and planning is needed.

• A 2002 Texas study Investing in Volunteerism: The Impact of Service Initiatives in Selected Texas State Agencies, provides an excellent model for California to move forward on this recommendation. The study was prepared by the University of Texas RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service for the Texas state service commission.

Establish volunteer coordination offices: Based on the results of this service, develop volunteer coordination offices or some type of coordination mechanism for state agencies. For example, California State Parks promotes and coordinates volunteering at the state level - an approach that could be adapted to other agencies.

Test the idea with new state-funded after-school programs: As California launches the new after-school initiative, After School Education and Safety, with $550 million in state funding to more than 4,000 schools, older adult service could be a valuable source of human capital for implementing local programs. Three reports from Experience Corps provide helpful guidance for taking action on this idea:

• Experience After School: Matching Older Adults' Assets and Interests with Out-of-School Time Needs, a 2007 report by Policy Studies Associates examining the potential match between the growing resource of older adults and the growing field of after-school programming,
• Engaging Older Americans in After-School Programs, a 2002 report describing after-school programs that involve older volunteers, and
• The Potential of Older Workers for Staffing California's After-School Programs, a 2003 report that looks ahead to the idea of engaging older adult volunteers and paid workers in California's new after-school programs.