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Award
Winners
2002
BUSINESS AWARD
The
ASA Business of the Year Awards, one for large companies and two for
medium/small companies, recognize exemplary company programs that meet
the needs of older people and their families, expand public awareness
of the private sector's increasing involvement with older people and
create performance models for other companies to emulate.
LARGE
COMPANY
AT&T Family Care Development Fund
Basking Ridge, NJ
 AT&T is being honored for its commitment to the needs of its 130,000 employees and their families. It provides an impressive array of benefits, and has created an effective partnership with the aging network to implement its eldercare services.
Its Work & Family Program is directed at the reduction of the stress of balancing work and family lives. To help employees’ family needs, the program offers eldercare information, referrals and support, as well as reimbursement accounts for caregivers. The Elder Care Consultation and Referral Services helps locate, evaluate and manage quality care for family members over 60.
Two years ago, the program launched a quarterly National Teleconference Call to address eldercare issues. Experts speak on selected topics, then answer questions from participants. The calls offer caregiver information, skill-building in caring and coping, strategies to access services and emotional support.
In 1990, the Work & Family Program introduced the Family Care Development Fund, created and co-administered by AT&T and two major unions, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. It is a grant-making program to help address dependent care needs, supporting community-based elder and childcare programs and services used by employees and their families. The fund seeks to improve dependent care services, helping to develop standards of service and accreditation. It partners with community and national organizations that serve older adults and their families and caregivers.
The Family Resource Program is another important part of the Work & Family Program. It offers 24-hour consultations and referrals by aging experts. On-site support groups are available for caregivers.
AT&T has also partnered with Generations United to develop a booklet and fact sheet on the subject of grandparents or other family members who are raising children. Other offerings include financial planning, with a program called “Thriving After 55,” and “Generation to Generation,” material dealing with intergenerational communication.
As a corporation, AT&T offers employees many benefits involving family care issues. They include: long-term care insurance coverage, flexibility in personal time and generous family care leave, and paid time for community volunteering.
These best practices and the many services provided by the Work & Family Program are AT&T’s generous contribution to the aging field.
SMALL COMPANY (TWO WINNERS)
Ageless Design
Jupiter, FL
Ageless Design, Inc. is a consulting, education and information company, created in 1994 by Mark and Ellen Warner. Mark Warner is an architectural gerontologist, and the author of The Complete Guide to Alzheimer’s-Proofing Your Home. The company is dedicated to improving older adults’ living environments, to help them “live smarter and safer,” despite the challenges of age-related infirmities. The company offers:
- Consultation and architectural plan reviews for homes and institutional projects.
- Specialized design teams for assisted living and Alzheimer’s care facilities.
- Professional training programs for visiting nurses, social workers, home healthcare workers, discharge planners, occupational and physical therapists, architects and interior designers.
- Informative books, articles, brochures, pamphlets and audiotapes.
- Speaking engagements for national and local conferences, support groups and special events.
Ageless Design presents an informational website (www.agelessdesign.com) featuring a quarterly magazine for Alzheimer’s caregivers, a daily news service covering Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and an ask-the-experts page. It was created to provide information, creative solutions and techniques, and products for people with Alzheimer’s and those caring for them.
The products are offered at its online store, The Alzheimer’s Store (www.alzstore.com). They are selected on the basis of their quality, cost, the solutions they offer to dementia-related challenges, and their contribution to improving quality of life for both the caregiver and the person with dementia. The appropriateness of each product for specific stages of the disease is noted in the online catalog. Merchandise is categorized in terms of safety, wandering, activities of daily living, falls, incontinence, caregiving, forgetfulness, books, and activities and entertainment.
The company was challenged to continue as an informational resource and as a profitable venture. As users to the website began to request Ageless Design’s expertise and assistance, the company evolved into a marketplace for its unique services and products to help and enhance the lives of people with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers.
Gold Violin
Charlottesville, VA
As the U.S. population grows older, the retail marketplace has not evolved to reflect this development. There is little elder-directed merchandise, and much of it is functionally oriented, and, according to Connie Hallquist and Ann Taylor, resembles medical supply products. The sisters brought their respective backgrounds in marketing and finance to address this lack, and founded Gold Violin, a specialty retailer offering useful, yet attractive, products for older adults.
Created in 1999, Gold Violin markets its stylish merchandise through a mail order catalog, online store (www.goldviolin.com), direct response advertising, and a co-branded store on AARP’s website (www.aarp.org). The business targets baby boomers buying for aging parents and older adults buying for themselves, friends and relatives.
Gold Violin is more than an upscale product line. The company’s goal is to counter the notion that older adults prefer mere functionality, rather than the amenities of a fully realized life in spite of disabilities. Its approach is “to showcase an assortment of products which enable older adults to pursue their passions, hobbies and interests.” Best-selling product categories include walking sticks and canes, pill organizers, magnifiers and ergonomic tools. The merchandisers consult with a geriatric physician to ensure that their products respond to the health and daily living challenges of their target market. The key, Connie Hallquist says, “is to offer a compelling mix of solutions without calling attention to infirmities.”
Combining everyday products with creations by the late haute couture great Pauline Trigere and other noted designers, Gold Violin aims to establish a niche for older adult consumers that will address their needs for practical as well as stylish goods, and also, perhaps more importantly influence concepts for assistive devices and adaptive designs for older adults.
Honorable Mention
Consulting Nutritional Services
Calabasas, CA
 Consulting Nutritional Services is being honored for its development of the Millennium Menu Project 2000 for the City of Los Angeles Department of Aging. Since 1987, the private, for-profit company has provided consulting and oversight services on food service operations and projects to corporations and governmental agencies. The Millennium Menu project is a partnership with the City of Los Angeles to enhance the current system of elder meal delivery at nutrition sites throughout the city. Its goal was to improve the dining experience of older adults at these sites. The process extended from developing new recipes and menus to changing color schemes and logos to training staff.
Consulting Nutritional Services involved volunteer chefs of its client Levy Restaurants, local restaurateurs at the Staples Center, in developing new menus that worked creatively with nutritional and budgetary requirements, and in training kitchen staff to improve service. Recipes were developed, tested, then sampled and critiqued at tastings. The results, both in ingredients and presentation, were standardized to maintain consistency of quality among all the meal sites.
This partnership brought the high-level preparation and training, quality assurance and marketing of private enterprise to the public sector to help the City of Los Angeles provide excellent and attractive nutritional services to its older citizens. The most important benefit of the project may be its adaptability for other cities to improve their own service programs.
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