Tips for and Examples of Intergenerational Programs For Seniors and Youth

Resources For Volunteer Managers:
Tips for and Examples of Intergenerational Programs
For Seniors and Youth

Many organizations want to bring people of different ages together as part of the agency's mission. Often, these programs involve senior volunteers working with youth. There are many examples of such programs, and these web sites offer profiles of not only some of these programs, but also tips for bringing senior volunteers and youth together.

Illinois Intergenerational Initiative
Explores ways to strengthen the intergenerational infrastructure in Illinois from the Illinois Board of Higher Education and Southern Illinois University. They want to be a starting point for discussion that can lead to a better understanding of other generations. The website compiles a large amount of publications regarding service learning of all ages, intergenerational technology programs, older learner programs, after-school-programs, involving retirees in workforce preparation etc.
Volunteers Sharing in Education
A Canadian program that brings retirees, seniors, university students, and others as volunteers to schools. Provides examples of volunteer activities, such as: General Classroom Assistance, Class Grandparents, Remedial Education, Special Education, Tutoring, Mentoring, Languages, Early Literacy Intervention Programs, Electives/Enrichment, Resource Speakers, School Clubs, Coaching Team Sports, Trips, Excursions and Special Days, Library Assistant, and Office Assistant.
University of Pittsburgh Generations Together - An Intergenerational Studies Program
An Intergenerational Studies institute with services and resources of interest to professionals exploring the interaction between children, youth, and older adults.
The following GT programs are in place:
- Family Friends: a program that matches older adults with special needs children and their families and offers non-clinical support services and respite care.
- Intergenerational Arts & Education Program: uses the skills of the community's old master artists in schools and other community settings.
- Intergenerational Early Childhood Program: Training older adults for work in child care. Intergenerational early childhood volunteering in classrooms, and to support goals such as family literacy.
- Intergenerational Mentoring Welfare-to-Work Project: inter-generational mentoring relationships during a 12 month period following placement of needy families in either work experience or unsubsidized positions.
- Grandkin Raising Grandkids Program: To identify the needs of older adults who are raising children who are their relatives.
- Youth Community Service Programs: Youth serve frail elderly in a variety of settings: nursing homes, adult day care facilities, and individual residences.
Senior Corps' Foster Grandparent Program
This program trains senior volunteers to give emotional support to child victims of abuse and neglect, to tutor children who lag behind in reading, to mentor troubled teenagers and young mothers, and to care for premature infants and children with physical disabilities and severe illnesses.

This website presents examples of successful colloborations between old and young:
- Senior Computer Instruction Program: volunteer eighth graders teach senior citizens how to handle a computer.
- GrandFriends: the program matches seniors who are 70 years of age or wiser with children.
- Phone Pal: It is a free program designed to help latch-key students when they are alone before or after school.
- The Grandparent Adoption Program at Hesston College: college students have been matched with adopted grandparents in the Hesston community.
- Eldernet Education Committee: the commitee has the goal of linking students and older adults in schools to promote positive images of aging and older adults.
Center for Intergenerational Learning
This center provides a number of intergenerational programs and information:
- Abuelas y Jovenes: A drug prevention and in-home support program involving older women as mentors to Latina pregnant and parenting teens.
- Across Ages: A drug prevention program for high-risk middle school youth that involves older people as mentors to students.
- Full Circle Theaters: An intergenerational ensemble of teens and elders addresses social issues through improvisational theater.
- Sisters in Science: Older women with science backgrounds and undergraduate teachers-in-training help increase interest in science among 4th-grade minority girls through environmental community service projects.
- Time Out: College students provide respite to families caring for frail elders.
- Project WRITE: College students help elders enhance their reading and writing skills.
- Project SHINE: Students provide language, literacy and citizenship tutoring for elderly immigrants and refugees.
- HomeFriends: this program mobilizes older volunteers as mentors and advocates for families who are at risk or have been reported for child abuse and neglect.
Intergenerational Center for Education About Aging
Provides "Career in Aging" Interviews in text and realaudio with three seniors about their lives, to provide students (ages 12-18) from around the world with the opportunity to interactively learn about aging and older adults.
Generations Incorporated
A nonprofit organization committed to intergenerational programming.Activities include:
- Generation Clubs: The program model facilitates long-term, one-on-one relationships between urban youth and isolated elders.
- Leaps in Literacy: The program utilizes the nationally acclaimed Reading CoachesTM model that has been able to raise students' reading scores by over 3 reading levels in 1 year.
- After School Program: The After School Program brings a group of older adults into a school or community site to work one-on-one with elementary children reading below grade level and to work with middle school students who have been identified as academically at risk.
Oasis
Provides information about intergenerational tutoring, with senior volunteers tutoring young children who need help developing reading and language skills.
AgeLink
Offers classroom-based recreation and education programs to bring together seniors and children in the San Diego area to help build self esteem and increase communication skills for all participants. Programs:
- Generation Link: Bringing together seniors and children to share stories, perform skits, do crafts etc.
- Grandparent Link: Grandparents and grandparents-to-be learn communication skills, tips on long distance grandparenting and support.
- Summer Camp and Field Trips/Holiday Link
- Community Link: A community-based program to support elders and youth with telephone pals, tutoring, visits, and reminder services.
- Business Link/Senior Link: Skills-building workshops, awareness seminar and intergenerational program design are available on-site for corporations, senior residential centers and convalescent centers.
Strom Thurmond Retirement and Intergenerational Studies
The mission: To focus research on the social, cultural, economic, and political impacts of retirees across the state and nation, as well as their potential as significant contributors in the lives of America's youth. In the Intergenerational Entrepreneurship Demonstration Project retirees help the youth operate their own country market out of a renovated dairy barn. The LINC Project partners youth with older adults in community service teams.
Generations United
The premier national organization that focuses solely on promoting intergenerational strategies, programs, and policies and advocating for the mutual well-being of children, youth, and older adults. Generations United maintains the nation's largest resource library and database of intergenerational programs. GU has also been designated as the national clearinghouse for intergenerational Learn and Serve programs.
New Jersey Intergenerational Network
The website makes information on intergenerational programs readily available to all interested parties. There are internet links to national programs and programs in New Jersey.
Generation Connection Society (GCS)
A volunteer non-profit in Canada society whose purpose is to develop educational programs and resources which foster positive intergenerational communication, help increase self esteem and promote greater personal and social responsibility. They have produced a number of
videos about intergenerational issues that are used to stimulate discussions and encourage interaction in classrooms.
Insite
A web-based mentoring network that uses a web site and database to facilitate the matching of middle and high school students with pre-screened adults according to shared interests and career goals. The Career Mentor Database lets you search for and connect with a mentor in a certain career interest area.
Brookdale Center on Aging of Hunter College (Intergenerational Programs)
Responsible for developing, administering, evaluating, and publishing pilot projects that link young and old New Yorkers for their mutual benefit.
- Intergenerational Life History Project: high school students are linked to homebound elderly.
- Intergenerational Language Learning: senior citizens who are native speakers of foreign languages help Hunter College undergraduates improve their ability to speak and understand foreign languages.
- Intergenerational World War II Veterans Project: links veterans of World War II with undergraduates and high school students for the purpose of helping the students gain a better understanding of the period both in the military and on the home front.
- Intergenerational "Remembering Old New York" Project: linked high school students with retired working class people who had lived most of their lives in New York City.
- Intergenerational Program for Health Careers in Aging: links high school students with nursing homes and hospitals with the purpose of helping students clarify their career goals and to help recruit youth into the field of gerontology.
Rainbow Bridge
Initiating and cultivating ongoing relationships between nursing home elders and youth, families, individuals and community organizations. They have produced Rainbow Bridge, An Intergenerational Musical. Current programs:
- Family and Elders Program: facilitates the matching of volunteers, including youth, adults, and families, who become companions, advocates, and families for nursing home elders who have little or no visitation.
- Business/Community Group and Elders Program
- Youth and Elders Program: facilitates regular visitation between school classes and other youth groups and nursing home elders.
Palaver Tree Online
An online community designed to support the collection and exploration of history by kids. They focus on creating communications channels between kids and elders online. Kids working in a classroom read stories as part of their standard curriculum and formulate questions for elders based on what they have read. Elders respond with answers, stories, photos, and more. Kids and elders talk for a time and then work together to build historical artifacts online.
Intergenerational Subcommittee of the Office of Library Outreach Services (OLOS)
Advocate for, help, develop, and support projects, which demonstrate mutually beneficial and enjoyable programs linking generations. A list of Intergenerational Programs provide libraries the opportunity to preview the variety of previously implemented intergenerational programs available, to either replicate or adapt for their community.
Life Raft
An intergenerational crew and special guests explore questions about our lives through fiction, non-fiction, analysis, humor, graphics, photography, music-- an artistic expression of human experience.
Grandpa-Grandma Corps
Aiding at-risk adolescents through intergenerational mentoring, presentation, and outing programs. Current Activities:
- GrandMentoring: This is a one-to-one relationship in a classroom, day care center, Head Start, Chapter 1 or domestic crisis shelter.
- GrandRounds: This is a presentation program with the volunteer providing their life story normally in a classroom.
- Granderation Outing: This program stresses socialization skills through interaction with volunteers and peers from the community.
- GrandVisit: The program is a weekly nurturing encounter, primarily on a one-to-one basis with a child that needs special attention.
- GrandNuturing: This program assists with infants and young children typically in a day-care facility.
- GrandCinema: Twice a month Corps members get together with participants aged 13-18 to view a movie and discuss its contents.

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