The organizations discussed in this post are active in the state of New Jersey (my community) as well. However, Adult Protective Services (APS) follow different rules depending on the particular state. This factor may significantly impact their effectiveness and their ability to introduce new policies to the protection of and support for senior citizens. For instance, in New Jersey, APS has a stricter definition of a vulnerable adult. It has to be a person of 18 years or older, residing in the community, and having a disability, physical or mental illness, deficiency, or limited cognitive capacity to make their own health-related decisions (New Jersey Department of Human Services, 2019). Therefore, cases of abuse reported to this entity in the state of my community will be neglected if an older person does not fit the description perfectly.
Policies related to food support are very important to seniors in New Jersey. Major organizations working with impoverished state residents note that a significant part of older adults has food insecurity. According to CUMAC (n.d.), more than eight percent of seniors have food-related problems, and the rate continues to grow. The Center for Food Action (n.d.) find that the number of seniors in positions of food insecurity has doubled in the last two decades. They also state that around ten percent of all older adults had nutritional problems, but less than half of them were considered eligible for a food stamps program SNAP (Center for Food Action, n.d.). Thus, the introduced policy of financing and using crowdfunding resources to solve elder food insecurity in the state may not be enough to resolve all issues related to people’s ineligibility for support or unclear acceptance standards.
Similar to the poster’s community, New Jersey has offices of Area Agencies of Aging, and the Division of Aging Services (DoAS) acts in the same way as Ohio’s Department of Aging. DoAS helps low-income older adults and people with disabilities, assisting them with Medicare premiums and other expenses. They get federal funding through the Older Americans Act as well (New Jersey Department of Human Services, n.d.). Nonetheless, the policy of extending such financial help to people in the community may be challenged with New Jersey’s increasing senior poverty problem. Some recent statistics show that, while New Jersey’s senior poverty level is lower than the national rate on average, several communities experience more financial problems than others. For example, almost one-fourth of Hispanic older adults live in poverty in New Jersey, while the overall US rate of poverty among Hispanic seniors is below 18 percent (America’s Health Rankings, 2019). This calculation reveals a lack of outreach to minority groups and an insufficient number of programs targeting particular populations.
Other problems are also connected to New Jersey’s younger and older residents. New Jersey has a low percentage of volunteerism, which puts any community-based projects at risk of being ineffective (America’s Health Rankings, 2019). The participation of senior leaders in the decision-making process can contribute to the improvement of programs targeting older adults (Dilworth-Anderson, Pierre, & Hilliard, 2012). In the discussed community, the failure to engage older volunteers can be detrimental to any positive changes. At the same time, if patients’ caregivers are inactive in their community work as well, the education of families may be ineffective. To sum up, New Jersey has to tackle the problems of poverty and caregiver education, while engaging more residents in community work and addressing health disparities in minority populations.
References
America’s Health Rankings. (2019). Explore poverty in New Jersey. Web.
Center for Food Action. (n.d.). Hunger in New Jersey. Web.
CUMAC. (n.d.). Hunger in NJ. Web.
Dilworth-Anderson, P., Pierre, G., & Hilliard, T. S. (2012). Social justice, health disparities, and culture in the care of the elderly. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 40(1), 26–32.
New Jersey Department of Human Services. (2019). What is Adult Protective Services? Web.
New Jersey Department of Human Services. (n.d.). Division of Aging Services (DoAS).Web.