My name is Dennis Haffron. I am a manager for PACEs and the social sciences. I have trained college students in senior citizens groups in ACEs and PACEs. Since retiring I am seeing the need to focus on senior citizens as an overlooked resource. I am 77 years old and several of the people that I work with in regard to PACEs are older than I am. Many individuals who have been involved from the beginning with ACEs/PACEs are now also senior citizens.
Additionally those seniors who can be informed and involved can be a powerful resource in several areas. First of all, senior citizens vote more than any other demographic group and their political goodwill would be a great benefit in establishing a PACEs agenda. Secondly, senior citizens are in the position to put in time and effort into building PACEs communities and institutions. Thirdly, senior citizens can function as members of families who can use this knowledge to support their children grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A community has launched on PACEs Connection called Elders. I propose the main focus for this community to be training, informing, invigorating and involving previously ignored senior citizens in our campaign to build a PACEs aware society. I conceive that that task entails materials and guidelines for reaching out to senior citizens. I also plan, to encourage others, to tell stories about senior citizens who are already involved, what they are doing, and what they have already contributed to the PACEs movement. I further seek to provide information whereby seniors could link to each other and link to other interest groups and geographical communities.
I am doing this because I became aware of the need for the Elders community on PACEs Connection when I participated in the series of workshops presented by the Campaign for Trauma-informed Policy and Practice, the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives & PACEs Connection. During the last meeting of the most recent CTIPP workshop I mentioned the fact that the population being overlooked for PACEs awareness was senior citizens and that I would attempt to create a community to focus on them. One already existed and now it needs to be built up.
If you are a senior citizen, know of a senior citizen who has been involved with PACEs, or can identify groups of seniors that we might reach out to, I ask you to email me at socandace1@gmail.com, leave a comment with your contact info, or message me through PACEs Connection.
Individual volunteers for a founding committee are welcome to reach out.
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