“If I told you I have a special potion that had the ability to improve the overall health and well-being of older Pennsylvanians and provided benefits like:
- Reducing the number of doctor and hospital visits
- Reducing the use of medicine and prescription drugs
- Increasing social activity, and
- Increasing morale and decreasing the feelings of loneliness and isolation
Would you want to know what it is? Would you want to invest in it? Would you want it if it is proven and evidenced based? I have that special potion and it is called Creative Aging.” ~ Steven Horner, Dir. Of Aging Services, PA Dept. of Aging
Dumore Senior Center
As Pennsylvania continues to “gray”, over 21% of the population is age 60 or older, the Commonwealth continues to look for new and innovative services and programs to offer this population. Through the Senior Community Centers (Senior Centers) older Pennsylvanians can get things from hot meals, to classes on health and wellness, to access to technology. So Senior Community Cen-ters seemed to be a logical place to pilot a program on Creative Aging.
Two years ago, Steven Horner, PA Dept. of Aging, and Jamie Dunlap, PA Council on the Arts (PCA) began a discussion on ways to connect their work and programs at their respective agencies. The result of these discussion was a pilot program called the Creative Aging Pilot Training and Residency Project which was built on the existing infrastructure involving Area Agencies on Aging, the PCA’s Arts in Education (AIE) partners, Senior Community Center Administrators and the two state agencies.
Over three days, staff from the senior centers, the AIE partner, and teaching artists, as members of a team, received training from Elders Share the Arts, a Brooklyn based organization that has over 30 years of experience in designing and implementing creative aging programs. These teams were trained in how to implement, evaluate, and sustain creative aging programs. It also allowed the team partners to understand expectations between partners, create a deep-er buy-in from senior center agencies, and expand knowledge of what is available and possible to centers. The following senior centers participated in the training:
Ebensburg Senior Activity Center, Ebensburg
Kennett Area Senior Center, Kennett Square
LiveWorks Erie, Erie
The Mercy Hilltop Center, Inc., Erie
Bellefonte Senior Resource Center, Bellefonte
Coudersport Senior Center, Coudersport
Klein JCC, Philadelphia
Elizabeth Seton Center, Inc., Pittsburgh
Dunmore Senior Citizens Center, Scranton
United Neighborhood Centers, Scranton
Crispus Attucks Community Center, York
Penn Hills Senior Service Center, Pittsburgh
Hill House Senior Services Center, Pittsburgh
Eastern Area Adult Services, Turtle Creek
Coudersport Senior Center
The teams were then charged with doing a 5 day mini arts residency within each senior center. Residencies ran the gamut from visual arts, theatre, literary arts, music, woodworking, dance, textile arts, and interdisciplinary arts. The creative aging program not only taught an art form but provided the individuals with the opportunity to share and capture memories and life experiences and transpose them into art so that others may learn from it. Benefits include providing the individual with a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
The evidence based research this pilot program is based on is the Creativity and Aging Study directed by Gene D. Cohen, MD, PhD, Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University. The study followed 300 people aged 65 to 100 (average age 80) from three areas of the US. Half were as-signed to a intervention group (participating in various professionally run cultural activities) and the other half to a control group. At the end of the study, “subjects in the intervention group reported a higher overall rating of physical health, fewer doctor visits, less medication use, fewer instances of falls, better morale, fewer feelings of loneliness, and a trend toward increased activity than did the control group.”
For more information about the Creative Aging Pilot Training and Residency Project contact:
Steven Horner, PA Department of Aging at 717-783-1550
Jamie Dunlap, PA Council on the Arts at 717-525-554