June 20, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus, April 18, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station: “How A Student Generation Is Reacting To The ‘Aging Boom’. Professor Barrie Robinson, at the School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley has been working with students during their internships. She will talk to us about the challenges and opportunities the demographic shift poses to education, about student interest and perception of a career in the field of aging.
May 16, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Lifelong Learning’. Hope Klein Levy, MA
Lifelong Learning Specialist and Health Educator at Kaiser Permanente. She will explore with us the rather novel field of lifelong learning.
April 18, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station: ‘A Conversation With Wendy Peterson’. Wendy Peterson is the director of the Senior Services Coalition of Alameda County and a veteran in the field of aging policies and services. She will talk to AHWGO how current policy changes will affect service providers and receivers and reflect on her professional history in the field of aging.
March 21, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘The Recovery Model as used in Innovative Mental Health and its Potential Lessons for Empowering Elders’, Cathy Spensley/Jon David Setell, Family Service Agency, San Francisco
February 21 , 2013, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station: ‘The Complex Ethics of Late Life Medical Decisions: Tips and Conundrums’. As we live longer, it is getting trickier to maintain autonomy over one’s own body. It’s useful to discuss legal tools (that don’t require a lawyer) so we can help our clients, ourselves and our loved ones to plan ahead. Philip Batchelder is an attorney with a particular interest in medical decision-making and end-of-life matters. He is a volunteer community member of the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley.
January 17, 2013, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘ Downsizing’ Home’, Professor Jill Stoner, UC Berkeley, College of Environmental Design and Susi Stadler, Architect. Regrouping, pairing down, moving to a smaller, more fitted home can be a source of renewal. We will talk about how a compact space can fullfill the essence of home and what home means to us throughout life. Professor Stoner is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. She teaches design studios at the graduate level, an undergraduate thesis option, and cross disciplinary seminars in the theory of contemporary space. She is just concluding a fellowship at HUD where she explored solutions to the ‘ American landscape of foreclosure’.
December 20 , 2012, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station: ‘Gero Technology’ – Can an Intelligent Home Support Aging in Place? Doris Bersing, PhD, CEO of Living Well at Home is an early adopter of Gero Technology and is using it everyday with her clients. She will talk about how existing and new technology is being harnessed to support Aging in Place, where there is room for improvement and how technology affects care giving and receiving and the design of homes. New pilot programs with OnLok and Satellite Homes show that Gero Technology is slowly moving into the main stream.
Prior to co-founding Living Well, Doris Bersing was CEO at the Pacific Institute where she designed a cutting edge program in Gero Psychology. Doris is also a faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of Clinical Training at Saybrook.
November 15, 2012, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“The Role of Adult Day Health in the Lives of Frail Seniors and How Budget Issues Have Effected the Work of Adult Day Health Care Centers’, Sheila Hembury, Program Director, Bayview Hunters Point Multipurpose Senior Services.
October 18 , 2012, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station.“Seven Principles of Life Enhancing Design”: Gary Coates, Professor of Architecture at Kansas State will talk about the qualities of the built environment, especially in healing and spiritually restorative environments that support human well being. He has studied and written about these life enhancing principles in the work of the Swedish Architect Erik Asmussen (1913-1998) who is widely known for his humanly scaled and ecologically sustainable design and his roots in anthroposophy.
September 20, 2012, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“An Unexpected Place of Healing”, Ted Talk by Romana Pierson. This Ted Talk is about the unexpected resourcefulness of people in a Nursing Home. Coined “Radical Collaboration” – such “mismatches” can tap into the latent resourcefulness of elder. Should this be explored more systematically? How do we learn to look for opportunities?
Summer Break: July and August
June 21 , 2012, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station. Guy Micco will join us in a conversation about his work with a focus on the positive side of aging. Professor Micco is Clinical Professor in the UCB/UCSF Joint Medical Program and Director of the UC Berkeley Academic Geriatric Resource Center . Guy’s teaching work has revolved around bringing students into contact with elders in retirement communities to better understand aging in our time and culture. He is also a part-time hospice/palliative care physician. For more information go to http://sph.berkeley.edu/faculty/micco.php.
May 17, 2012, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“A Nurturing Home Instead of Nursing Home”. Lynette Evans, former editor of SF Chronicle’s Home and Garden Section and her niece Monika Weiss have made it their mission to showcase products and designs that support people in their desire to age at home (www.afriendlyhouse.com). They will take us on a tour of their findings.
April 19 , 2012, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station.“It Is Not Just About Food”: Susan Edwards will talk about the drama of the dining room in senior residences. Who to sit with or not to sit with in the dining room is the question. As meal times become the main social “interface” for many who live in senior residences this is a subject which warrants an interdisciplinary discussion.
Susan Edwards a thirty year veteran in senior housing and currently the Executive Director of Alma Via, a non-profit assisted living facility in San Rafael will explore this topic along with her director of food services and a resident from the community.
March 15, 2012, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“Reciprocity: Spiritual and Psychological Approaches to Giving and Receiving Care as We Age”. Elizabeth McLeod in conversation with Rabbi Elliot Kukla. Elliot and Beth will explore the many ways in which humans find aging, and especially receiving care, a critical and often times unexpected challenge, and suggest pathways in both the spiritual and psychological realms to better prepare for this.
February 16 , 2012, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station.“Growing Old and Technology: How people can use technology despite physical limitations“. This talk by the Executive Director of the Center For Accessible Technology, Dmitri Belser will illustrate how disability does not make a barrier to using technology, and how various technologies are available that can be easily usable by older adults, even those who cannot see or have limited mobility.
January 19, 2012, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“Time to Let Yourself Go: A Report on My Retirement into a More Creative Life”. Anita Kline will reflect on retirement from her career as a social worker from San Francisco General where she worked with AIDS and cancer patients. She will share her original expectations for retirement, what has actually evolved and how retirement from her career has opened new paths into a more creative life. Anita is in her 70s, has a MSW from Berkeley, was in the Peace Corp and a political activist before she settled into the career as a medical social worker.
December 15 , 2011, 6pm to 8pm at the Ed Roberts Campus (Koret Conference Room) at 3075 Adeline Street in Berkeley across from the Ashby Bart Station. We will present two projects exploring the role of “home” in the life of older adults and taking a look at how older adults master their day-to-day life. One project “A Day In The Life” , is a video where a group of older adults has self documented their own home and commented on their day to day life, the other presents research about the older LGBT community in San Francisco. Presenters will be Cathy Spensley, Senior Division Service Director at FSASF, Susanne Stadler, principal at Stadler Architecture and Jarmine Yeh, PhD candidate in medical sociology at UCSF.
November 17, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco:“The Myth of Independent Living” - On The Meaning of Living Alone in Old Age. Our speaker will be Elena Portacolone who has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Bay Area of San Francisco on adults and older adults living alone, the Gray Panthers, and deinstitutionalization. Portacolone holds a BA in Political Sciences from Turin University (Italy), Masters in Business Administration and Public Health from UC Berkeley, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). She also has a blog “Living Alone and Aging”.
October 20, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Design for Senior Living – A Professional and Personal Perspective’. Susie Coliver, one of the principles of the San Francisco firm of Herman Coliver Locus Architecture will discuss the firm’s senior housing projects and her personal experience with aging and her role as daughter of a 93 old parent.
September 15, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Ambient Independent Living – Technology and Aging’. The kick-off for our discussion will be a TedTalk by Eric Dishman, a technology guru at Intel. This is a hot topic especially at a time when “aging in place” seems to be the solution for all our worries. Will technology oven up new opportunities for living longer independently? What does it mean to live independently? Who has access to technology?
July and August 2011: Summer Break! Please mark your fall calendar for September 15, October 20, November 17 and December 15.
June 23, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Theatre and Community’. A discussion with representatives from STAGBRIDGE , a theatre company in Oakland that lets older adults discover their theatrical self and bridges the generational divide through their multigenerational programs.
May 19, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Palliative Care’. Judith Redwing Keyssar, author of Last Acts of Kindness, speaks to us about her experience in being a midwife to the dying.
April 21, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Ethical Wills’. An Ethical Will gives an intimate personal history, posthumously. Rather than doling out physical items, it communicates values, beliefs and life lessons.
March 24, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Longevity – A Life Style Choice’.
We are going to have two speakers (via the world wide web), one is Dan Buettner who has researched ‘Blue Zones’, certain areas on earth where people live significantly longer and about what contributes to their longevity. This study was funded by National Geographics and the National Institute on Aging in 2005.
The other one is a short pep talk by Dean Ornish, founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. He talks about integrative healing and how simple life style choices can make a difference in healing and staying healthy . Lastly, there is a short promotional video on the latest emerging study by Drs. Howard Friedman and Leslie and their book, “The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study,”
February 24, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Aging in Community’. Raines Cohen, Co-Housing and Aging-in-Community Activist will talk about his work and discuss models of ‘Aging in Community’.
January 20, 2011, 6pm to 8pm at at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Memories’. Susan Rothenberg, a personal historian will talk about her experience with recording personal histories and what it means to her elderly clients.
December 16, 2010, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Housing Options and What They Mean for Our Own Aging’. Anne Burns Johnson taps into her vast experience as former director of the Aging Services for California.
November 18, 2010, 6pm to 8pm at 1 What happens when we have to take responsibility for ailing, elderly parents, to ourselves, our relations and what resources are available. We are going to screen parts of the 2007 movie on this subject ‘The Savages’. Donna Schempp, the former director of Family Caregiver Alliances will comment on fiction versus reality.
October 28, 2010, 6pm to 8pm at 2484 Shattuck Ave, #210 at the offices of ‘Jewish Family and Children Services’: ‘Models of Supportive Care For Elders’. Susan Poor who has done a lot of work and research around ‘aging in community’ will talk about her work, research and book ‘There Is No Place Like Home: Models of Supportive Care for Elders’. See also http://www.chcf.org/publications/2009/12/theres-no-place-like-home-models-of-supportive-communities-for-elders
September 23, 2010, 6pm to 8pm at 145 Guerrero (Francis of Assisi Residence) in San Francisco: ‘Dwelling Until 100′: Susanne Stadler talks about Architecture and Aging – how can design contribute to being at ‘home with growing old’.
