I have been asked to share the following Call for Interest with you:
Senior Advocacy Group: brief past offerings and present concerns....
Out of some bold and dedicated (zoom) efforts to name or identify seniors' concerns and issues, our motley group of some involved persons, lay and ministerial, sought to discern what it would take to offer some meaningful changes in the understanding and care of seniors or plain lack of care.
Namely:
a) affirming the place and role of spiritual chaplains/chaplaincy, which many have come to experience as pale, paltry, and suppressed as if needing to be apologized for, while in turn we in the United Church constituencies, and not only in seniors care or ministries, press our own question of what is it, then, that we believe we uniquely offer or could?
b) affirming the place and role of long-term care support staff so that they are meaningfully supported if and when stricken with the need for adequate sick paid leave including for the duration of a virus' or infection's term; and this should be tied to another United Church national and regional advocacy group, that of advocating for Guaranteed Livable Income.
c) that long-term care be viewed and supported/sustained as an essential public service as health care hopefully is rather than being downloaded to for-profit care and hence subject to inevitable down-sizing and becoming under-serviced.
and not likely all:
d) that United Church policies include, if not explicitly already (may need earnest some development or revisions), a specific calling to and willingness to work with seniors, in care or still on their own (and noting the dilemma of single seniors which are likely particularly vulnerable)in ways that are mutually meaningful and mutually healing or brought back into the "whole" (versus being split or cut off or rendered redundant in worth/dignity).
If you feel called to join our group, please register HERE to be added to a mailing list for the ECORC Senior's Advocacy Network
We will hold our first meeting via Zoom on Wednesday, November 16th at 2pm. This will be an information session for those who are interested in knowing more or feeling the call to join our group. An email with the Zoom link will be sent to those on our mailing list on Tuesday, November 15th.
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