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r • ** GENERATIONS PROJECT * * * NEWSLETTER A publication of the Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging July 1992 The Metropolitan Council/Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging is funded under the federal Older Americans Act, through a grant from the Minnesota Board on Aging, to carry out the responsibilities of an "Area Agency on Aging" to develop a comprehensive, coordinated system of services to older people in the seven county metropolitan area. Greetings! by LaRhae Rnaaenrd Other major social changes have also occurred as Welcome to the first edition of the Generations Project newsletter. I'd like to tell you more about aging has changed. Baby boomers are now in their the Generations Project which is being sponsored middle years, the largest generation ever born, by the Metro Area Agency on Aging over the next born at a time when possibilities seemed unlimited, two years. The project is a multi-year planning and now struggling to offer these same effort to look at the current and future needs of opportunities to the next generation. We also our aging population and restructure our systems have seen increases in poverty, especially among to prepare for the future aging wave we will children, and families under more types of experience in the next 25 years. pressures than ever before. Older people are part of families and are therefore are not untouched by all these pressures. Against this backdrop of social • Why are we doing this. issues,we can set the projected huge"age wave"we will experience in the next 25 years. (We also have Since I started working in Aging twenty years ago, our "current age wave" in the frail elderly aged there have been major changes in our society's 85+ needing more help to remain independent.) demographic structure and the view of aging in our society. The size of the system of services available "The '90s will make the '60s look like the '50s." to older people has also increased dramatically. In This statement says that change will accelerate in 1972, most people thought aging was synonymous the future and will revolutionize how we look at with sick, frail elderly in "old people's homes." and solve problems. In other words,the next aging Now,we are aware of the tremendous diversity in generation may have a totally different view of old age that was there all along, but now is more what should be available in old age. visible. Years ago, when an older person needed assistance, they were often placed in an old What changes will we need to make throughout all people's home. Now, older people who need help our "systems" in order to accommodate the aging can choose to remain in their own homes and of our society? How will all these changes affect apartments more often, and their families (and the services that older people will need to remain available services) help them stay there. independent? How must these services be organ- ized to support the changing family of the '90s? Along with the increase in the older population We are all increasingly aware of the interrelation- has come a change in how we view aging. Instead ships and tradeoffs that must be made as we make of being distant grandmothers or great aunts,many policy decisions. What does this mean for the more people have parents and grandparents still provision of adequate resources to the aging in our living and playing an important role in their lives. society? What is the long-term vision we have in Aging is more real as a part of all of our lives. this region for aging,and what changes do we need (This does not mean that our society's youth to start making now to reach those goals? orientation has changed.) Additional income and • health advances mean that old age can be a time of The Generations Project is a search for answers to growth and choices rather than inevitable decline. these questions. We hope that you will be