Home Away from Home Respite Center

Innovative and Exemplary:

The Home Away from Home Respite Center, now at the University of Rochester Medicine, was created to address an identified gap in community services for aging populations with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. The Home Away from Home Respite program’s goals are to meet the needs of caregivers by giving them time to care for themselves, and by reducing social isolation while their loved ones receive excellent care. After a comprehensive intake process and interview that includes caregiver-selected goals and guidance in selecting person-centered activities, care recipients attend two, four-hour sessions each week at a local interfaith center while their caregivers receive eight hours of respite each week. Respite is provided primarily by trained college student interns and volunteers, providing social contacts that are intergenerational and ethnically, socially, and culturally diverse. During a typical semester, 20 students dedicated about 1,000 hours of service in work that is life changing for many. Some students select professional paths in related disciplines and several students have been honored with academic scholarships based upon their volunteer experience. This data-based program regularly measures care recipient and caregiver needs, reviews daily case notes, inventories services, documents daily activities for fidelity to the model, documents numbers served and hours of service provided, and collects satisfaction and outcome data. SUNY Geneseo’s support for program staff, and grants and donations from faith-based organization and community partners ensure the program’s sustainability.

Home Away from Home Respite Center was recognized as Innovative and Exemplary in 2021.

SUNY discontinued the program after it was recognized by ARCH as Innovative and Exemplary. The program produced many useful lessons learned.  See the ARCH podcast,  Conversations on Caregiving – Flooding the airways with kindness, for an in-depth interview with the former program director Sharon Leary.

In 2022, the program was restarted with support from the University of Rochester Medicine, Noyes, Livingston Cares, Livingston County Office for Aging, and the NYS Caregiving and Respite Coalition, in partnership with Geneseo Interfaith Center and Dansville Methodist Church.  In order to remain open during the summer, the program now  recruits older adult volunteers to help when there are fewer student volunteers. The older volunteers receive the same training as the student volunteers. They also secured a mini grant to pay small student stipends during the summer months. Visit the website.