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Working caregivers get relief
Fran Sosa needed help. After her mom died, she started caring for an older relative she knows as "Uncle Freddy."
Sosa, 49, couldn't stay home from her job as a physical therapy tech or pay someone to care for her 78-year-old cousin, Alfred Vila, who has diabetes and brain damage from a childhood injury. She ended up finding adult day care for Uncle Freddy, but only by chance.
"If I didn't have that, I'd be forced to stop working," said Sosa, who lives in Seminole.
She's not alone. More baby boomers are trying to work and care for their aging parents, leading to problems at home and in the workplace.
Now Neighborly Care Network, the innovative social service agency that invented Meals on Wheels nearly four decades ago, is launching a program to help both desperate caregivers and their bosses.
Amid chaos, parents find more time for kids
I remember as a child returning home from a shopping trip with my sister and my mom. Dad had been left to tend our younger sister, who was still a baby. Those were the days of cloth diapers, and we found one out in the yard of our farmhouse when we returned that evening. Dad had been forced to change a diaper. Appalled by its contents, he removed it from the child and whipped it out into the yard.
It's not that dad was incapable of taking care of us kids, it's that he wasn't used to it. Usually, he was working. He was a school teacher and a farmer, which meant he had to do his farming - 250 acres and some pigs - at nights and on the weekends.
What a difference a generation makes. I've yet to whip a diaper into the front yard and I handle them daily. I don't work two jobs, but I do help around the house, mostly dishes and some bathroom cleaning.
Is This The Online Marketing System of The Decade?
/24-7PressRelease/ - AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, January 12, 2007 - In early 2004.MOM developers realized that the reason for the 95% failure rate in the home business industry resulted from the lack of quality training.Mentors on a Mission (MOM) came into existence to address this problem and to give home business owners a real chance to develop a passive income. In addition, few companies revealed the truth about what it takes to build a successful business from home. Claims such as ,"You will never have to talk to prospects", "the system does all the work for you" or "we will build it for you" were commonplace. Few addressed the real issue of "How to be your own boss" for those having a work at home job. The MOM training system called "Make Money or Make Excuses", claimed to deliver 'the truth'and delivered learning on step by step actions to build a successful homebusiness the same way 'Heavy Hitters' do.It achieves this via live and recorded transmissions - especially welcomed by those who work at home.
10 Leadership Insights from Gold Coast Top Pro
RISMEDIA, Jan. 3, 2007-Marketing is the most exciting part of the job for Julie Vanderblue, president of the Higgins Group (Christies Great Estates) and senior partner of the Vanderblue Team in Fairfield, Connecticut. Recently she partnered with a local consignment shop to host an antique viewing and wine tasting at an open house. The result? A $3 million sale of the estate. Here are some other unique team leadership insights from one of Connecticut's Gold Coast real estate leaders.
RE: What is the most creative thing you've ever done to sell a home? Julie Vanderblue: One of my favorite events was called "A Taste of Fairfield County." We worked with 12 different area restaurants and at each open house there was a raffle and a different restaurant catered the food. We said, "Come enjoy dinner on us." So we networked with the restaurants and a lot of the restaurants consider us their Realtor.
High-flyers quit rat race for Good Life
TO many the New Year brings with it the thought of a new start and a new life away from the stresses and pressures of work. One East Lancashire family did just that, giving up the rat race for the Good Life'.
When working mum Andrea Stephenson and partner Neil Ainsworth looked into the eyes of their new-born daughter nine years ago they knew that they had to change.
The high-flying couple immediately wanted to spend more time at home with their growing family and made a decision that would change their lives.
At the time they were working long hours and leaving the children with relatives as they travelled across the country on business.
But now Andrea, 36, a human resources manager, and property developer Neil, 40, own a farm and do their jobs from home.
Made in New Bedford: a suit designer retools
NEW BEDFORD -- Last year the Joseph Abboud suit factory did something not seen in at least a decade in this old textile capital: It added jobs.
The men's suit designer expanded its workforce nearly 20 percent to 590 employees and is investing millions of dollars in a sleek new production system at a time when other apparel makers have shrunk or disappeared from the struggling seaside city.
The strategy also bucks a nationwide trend of clothing manufacturers moving operations abroad where labor is cheaper, tax incentives abound, and US companies can avoid the rising costs of healthcare and energy at home. Over the past decade, jobs in apparel manufacturing have dropped from 443,200 to 196,500 across the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Abboud executives say they needed to go against the grain to survive in a fashion industry that has come under increasing pressure to get products more quickly to the stores and to meet growing demand for custom-made garments.
UK online centre projects to demonstrate social impact of ICT
Thousands of socially excluded people will get the chance to change their lives and reconnect with their communities by connecting with ICT, thanks to 20 new projects to be run by UK online centres across England.
The projects will support the areas identified in last year's Social Exclusion Action Plan - families in poverty, teenage parents, adults with mental illnesses and those supporting children in care. Some projects will also support older people, who form a significant proportion of those at both a social and digital disadvantage.
UK online centres were encouraged to bid for their share in the £2million of Social Impact Demonstrators grant funding, provided by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). The top 20 projects were picked by a panel of judges, including private and voluntary sector stakeholders.
Heading up the panel was Helen Milner, Managing Director of UK online centres. She said: "We were looking for projects which demonstrated creative use of ICT and innovation in engaging with key audiences. The winning bids are all designed to make a deep impact on specific groups, getting some of the hardest to reach people online for the first time, learning new skills, connecting with their communities and interacting with public services.
"The projects will explore the links between social and digital exclusion, and how ICT and the skills to use it can benefit individuals, families, communities and society itself. I'm excited about the potential of these projects to make a real difference to people's lives, and a difference to how we look at and address digital and social exclusion in the future."
More than 150 UK online centres will be involved in delivering the 20 projects. Each project will receive up to £100,000, and run for between six and 15 months. Some will help disadvantaged people with free or loaned home computers and internet access - others are using blogs, video diaries and digital media to collect stories and record how ICT can change lives. From outreach activities to community websites, the successful projects will all bring together local voluntary and community organisations to engage and support the people they're targeting.
One of the successful bids came from the Harold Tomlins Centre in Chester, run by Chester Aid to the Homeless (CATH). Chief Executive Robert Bisset explained: "The Social Impact Demonstrators funding will help us embed ICT into the work we already do to support homeless people. The project will see the introduction of a new 'Living and Learning' programme which will target older homeless people and those clients with mental health problems, and which will have technology at its heart.
"The fact is computers are key to everyday life now - in terms of employment and even communication. An email account is a real lifeline if you don't have a fixed address, and we've found ICT can be a real 'hook' for people. Once they're in front of a monitor, we'll introduce different elements of the programme, including living strategies and job skills, courses and qualifications. We'll also integrate housing services and work or volunteer experience by building on existing partnerships with the council and with local businesses.
"At CATH, we work with some very vulnerable and troubled people, for whom homelessness is often just one of many problems. Our job is to help them progress their lives - finding confidence, stability, accommodation and work. I'm excited about the potential of this project to help even more people make that journey."
Helen concluded: "Like Robert, I believe ICT really does have the potential to offer people new opportunities and new choices. I also believe UK online centres have a role to play in ensuring socially excluded people are able to take advantage of them. The results of these projects will help us demonstrate the clear link between social and digital exclusion, and help shape future activity to ensure we're reaching those who need us most."
Ends
For more information on UK online centres and the Social Impact Demonstrators projects, please contact Abi Stevens on 0790 987 5890.
Notes to editors
UK online centres engage with adults who have low or no skills in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), or who do not have access to ICT at home or at work.
