Growing a Caring Circle: Mount Newton Centre Aging well is a community affair. Health care services remain important but that is not enough to age well. Green's book You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? suggests an "emotional circle" is needed, which cannot be bought but grows from an investment of time. For 38 years the Mount Newton Centre has been all about giving time to seniors and their families. The Centre offers an Adult Day Program, Health Equipment Lending Cupboard, and Keep Well Clinics like a Community Bathing Program, Podiatry and Blood Pressure Clinics. As a notfor-profit charitable organization, its grass roots approach honours the history of pioneer families. Information from the World Health Organization, Island Health and the BC Ministry of Health provides a road map to what must be accomplished to aid seniors and their caregivers to live well. How to accomplish what is needed is more difficult. The Centre has found a way to focus on what matters most: a philosophy of personcenteredness within a caring circle. A caring circle is a sanctuary that honours a senior's abilities – their unique values, personal history and right to dignity and respect – as well as a family's heartfelt wishes. All Centre programs bring a "breath of fresh air" to old ideas like caregiving, social networks, dementia and empowerment. When seniors arrive to the Adult Day Program on the Centre's community-donated bus, they are greeted with the aroma of home-baked muffins and fresh coffee. The bus transportation uniquely extends the social aspects of the program for isolated seniors. A homemade lunch is reminiscent of earlier days. This simple uncomplicated approach, provided without fanfare, leaves
a powerful impression of home. The Health Lending Cupboard provides hope and encouragement when life circumstances require a need for short-term equipment loans to ensure independence at home. Finally, the Keep Well Clinics address a range of issues like mental health, education on chronic health problems, and coaching and mentoring on how to navigate the health care system. All Centre staff are devoted and committed to ensuring a sense of belonging by attending to personal details, and taking time to answer questions to promote well-being. Staff shore up caregivers so their journey can continue. They concentrate on what it takes to remain living independently in the community. When a person feels personally cared about, their function improves, their capacity to be independent strengthens, and their caregivers are given support to continue. The magic of the Centre is about generosity of time, its size, and making visible the abilities of each person in the face of their frailty. So listening to and embracing the wisdom from seniors' points of view is essential to setting Centre priorities. The Centre remains dependent on the goodwill of the community and the generosity of seniors, their caregivers and community volunteers. Donations from the citizens on Saanich Peninsula, plus a grant from Island Health for partial funding of the Adult Day Program, have assisted to ensure the work of the Centre is "of the people, for the people, by the people." The population aged 75 and over in Saanich is expected to increase by 77%. This re-enforces the continuing relevance of the Mount Newton Centre Society into the future. For more information visit www.mountnewtoncentre.org. january 2018 | seasidemagazine.ca 65