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Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning – Keeping the Environment Safe and Communities Healthy with Family Friends
“Everyone Benefits” is an expression highlighted on the Family Friends website. Family Friends, part of the National Council on the Aging, Inc. (http://www.ncoa.org), is a successful national nurturing community program that teams up older adult volunteers with children who are chronically ill or disabled. Older trained Family Friends volunteers come into the homes and hearts of families in their communities and provide support, love and care for children in need. At the Temple Center for Intergenerational Learning that sponsors the Philadelphia Family Friends project, everyone does benefit. The children and their families benefit from the social support given by the volunteer. The volunteer gains from finding a family that needs them. The community is strengthened by its citizens who provide support and services to fellow citizens, cutting health care costs, and in some cases protecting citizens from exposure to environmental hazards.
Recognizing how important it is that young people become more aware of environmental health issues in their communities and inspired the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Aging Initiative (http://www.epa.gov/aging/) in 2002, the extremely innovative Philadelphia Family Friends program convened ten workshops focusing on environmental health concerns. This new model adapted elements from an EPA-funded project called RADICAL (Real Actions Directed to Improving Children’s Health and Lifestyles), which has developed teaching and workshop materials about environmental health problems. The children who participated in the project were drawn from the city’s kinship care program, an after-school program for low-income children in North Philadelphia and children in the existing Family Friends program. Several of the children were struggling with social and emotional challenges that often result from living with family members other than their parents. Others had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The older volunteers worked closely with the children in a mentoring capacity using their own experiences and knowledge to encourage participation and involvement. It is the mission of Family Friends to bring special children together with special older volunteers and together they cope with daily challenges that affect the community. The Philadelphia Family Friends project took on a very important community challenge – their environmental health -- an issue that is important for everyone.
A unique aspect of the Philadelphia project was the involvement of the director of the Full Circle Intergenerational Theater Troupe, who served as the facilitator for all ten sessions, guiding the discussions, and overseeing how the curriculum could be adapted to work with artistic tools of expression. The Full Circle Theater Troupe is an intergenerational community of actors who use laughter and improv theater to tackle social problems. The first three forums presented general information about three key environmental health concerns: asthma, second-hand smoke, and lead poisoning. Strategies for how best to attach an artistic component to the presentation were also discussed during these initial sessions. The Theatre Troupe director helped the Family Friends participants incorporate skits, puppetry, and other forms of art to highlight the lessons learned. The students rehearsed their skits several times following the last workshop session, performed for two after school programs, and appeared at a Full Circle Theatre fundraiser.
The involvement of the Full Circle Theatre Troupe was an inspired approach. The students were fully engaged during the workshops, interacted enthusiastically, and took pride in developing their puppet shows with their Family Friends older volunteers. This learning method served to reinforce the information presented. Life size puppets were created, as well as a power point presentation and video of the skits presented. Perhaps the most satisfying result of the students’ participation in these workshops came at the end of each performance. The audience was invited to ask the students questions about environmental health issues, and the students responded eagerly, demonstrating a clear and solid understanding of the material. All of the children could directly relate to the topics presented—most had asthma, or a sibling with the condition; several were in households were smoking occurred; and the issue of lead poisoning is particularly relevant in low-income communities.
The Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning Family Friends Project is but one excellent example of how intergenerational programs are working to help communities become more aware of environmental health issues. Other programs, including two additional Family Friends projects in southeast Pennsylvania, have followed their example and developed programs that are working to meet the unique environmental needs of those they serve. A key goal of the EPA Aging Initiative is to unite generations to address environmental hazards that may affect the health of the very young and those who are aging. We salute the Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning and the Philadelphia Family Friends program for helping to protect the environment health of our communities.
For more information about the Temple University Center for Intergenerational
Learning Family Friends Project, please visit http://www.temple.edu/cil/Familyfriendshome.htm 
.
For more information about Family Friends, a national program funded
by the U.S. Administration on Aging, visit http://www.family-friends.org.
For more information about the EPA Aging Initiative, visit http://www.epa.gov/aging/ or send an email to aging.info@epa.gov
March 2004