Walk in one door on the ONEgeneration campus in the San Fernando Valley in southern California, and you enter a cheerful daycare center for seniors. Walk into another door, and you've landed in an equally cheerful daycare center for children. Bringing these two groups together every day in carefully planned activities “that intertwine human needs for both giving and receiving in meaningful, daily contact” has been at the heart of ONEgeneration's work since 1994. The seniors in the daycare center, who each have some kind of cognitive impairment that prevents them from being able to be on their own, interact regularly with the toddlers and babies in the daycare program – sharing activity days on the adjacent playing field, working on crafts together, coming together for special visits from local non-profits like Mini Therapy Horses.
Seniors also spend time with young babies in the nursery, holding and rocking them. According to Julyana Marquez, a specialist in intergenerational programming for ONEgeneration, these activities give adults from the daycare center “the opportunity to care for a child through this interaction, when they are typically cared for.” ONEgeneration’s intergenerational programming is also at the heart of activities at their nearby Senior Enrichment Center, where seniors mix with junior- and high-school students in a variety of activities, including exercise classes, and also participate as mentors for local high school students in a program called “Sages and Seekers.”
What is the value of generations coming together in programs like this?
"Intergenerational spaces that bring together old and young generations provide endless benefits that promote the well-being of our community, while also taking a community-based approach to helping one another and strengthening our support system, while also promoting empathy, kindness, and compassion.”— Jenna Hauss, MSW/President and CEO, ONEgeneration
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