Community Care for the Elderly

As a Lead Agency in Pinellas County, Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services provides care management to more than 1,000 frail elders annually age 60 year and over to promote and maintain their optimum level of functioning in the least restrictive setting possible, reducing the need for crisis intervention.

Care Management is a person-centered service that assists individuals identify their physical and emotional needs and helps them plan for services and supports making it possible to remain living independently with dignity in their own home or the home of a care giver. Care managers closely monitor the quality and effectiveness of the services provided, as well as, the individual and family's satisfaction.

Services that may be arranged by Care Managers

• adult day care
• home health aide
• counseling
• homemaking
• personal care
• home delivered meals
• respite
• home repair
• medical therapeutic care
• incontinent supplies
• home nursing
• emergency alert response

Care managers may also provide additional support and services to persons residing in assisted living facilities who would otherwise need nursing home care. Services are authorized by the care manager and provided by the Assisted Living Facility and may include: adult resident care, behavior management, medication management, medical supplies, nursing services, and incontinent supplies.

Call the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Pasco and Pinellas counties for more information on how to access services.

Senior Helpline Number and Intake Number: 727-217-8111

Alzheimer's Initiatives

About 4 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer's. It is an illness that makes it hard for people to remember, think, and use language. It can make them act strange or seem moody. After a while, people with Alzheimer's have a hard time with things like using the phone, cooking or handling money.

Sadly, many people think the early symptoms of Alzheimer's are signs of normal aging so Alzheimer's is often not diagnosed and treated early. Alzheimer sufferers are both those with the disease and those who watch. It's a painful disease with no physical pain.

Older Americans Act Title III program provides homemaker services to frail elders in Pinellas County. These services enable elders to remain in their homes and avoid or delay placement in a nursing home.

Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services offers homemaker assistance to enable frail elders to maintain their own home and remain independent by assisting with housekeeping tasks they may no longer be able to perform. This is an essential community based service, based on the principle that in-home care can help preserve or improve the quality of life for persons in their later years and reduce the need for unnecessary out-of-home care or nursing home placement.

We proudly serve persons 60 and older who are having difficulties maintaining their own home or apartment due to physical or mental disabilities. Experienced staff work with individuals and their care givers to identify their needs and what they believe will make life easier. We do our best to match up an individual's needs and preferences with the skills, experience, and talents of our homemakers. We closely monitor the quality and effectiveness of the services provided, as well as, the individual and family's satisfaction.

Services that may be provided by Homemakers

Our homemaker program provides trained caring and compassionate homemakers that assist with many things including, but not limited to:

• Mopping, sweeping, and vacuuming floors
• Grocery shopping and picking up prescriptions and medications
• Meal planning and preparation
• Cleaning the bathroom, including the tub, shower, sink, mirrors
• Cleaning the kitchen, including dishes, range, refrigerator, counters, and cabinets
• Laundry, ironing, mending of clothing, pick up and drop off of dry cleaning
• Dusting and changing the bedding
• Advocacy and referral for other needed care

Homemaker services are provided throughout Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties. Priority for services is given to low income, minority individuals living in rural areas. Support for these services is made possible through the Older Americans Act, Agency for Health Care Administration, and private contributions.

Need Some Assistance?

Please call Gulf Coast Community Care

(727) 479-1800
or
1 (800) 888-5066

Caring Companions Program matches frail Jewish elders and the disabled with qualified homemakers to assist with cooking, shopping, cleaning and other basics enabling the individual to remain at home and avoid institutional placement. Consumers pay the agency $1 per hour to arrange for and supervise a caring companion.