Age Wise Age Well Volunteer Counselors Help Aging Adults

What is Age Wise Age Well?

Age Wise Age Well volunteer counselors strive to help our aging community through helpful and skilled person to person counseling. We’re all in our 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and we work with folks who are 55 and older. Thus, we call ourselves peer counselors. We come from many walks of life. Some have been teachers, social workers, therapists, counselors, and some have had business careers. We are all dedicated to improving our counseling skills.

We all undergo peer counselor training. Our most important goal is striving to listen with compassion and without judgment while also working at responding in a way that our clients know they are being heard. We typically work with clients on issues that are associated with aging such as grief, loneliness, depression, and sudden changes in ones living situation.

We are supervised as a group in weekly meetings where we interact in discussions on the best ways to address various challenges of aging that our clients present. In this way we support each other as a team while we strive to help our elderly peers in the Rogue Valley.

What we do

We receive referrals from several sources, often home health care agencies and sometimes from clients themselves. The AWAW Referral Number: 541-646-3402. When we receive a referral, the prospective client is given a brief psychosocial assessment by a professional who then presents the case to the counselors during our supervision meeting.

We then schedule appointments to visit our clients by phone, or by zoom during the pandemic but normally in person one hour each week: to listen, to offer support, and to provide them access to available resources. There is no time limit. This process can continue as long as it is productive. Because we are entirely volunteers there is, of course, no charge for this service.

We operate under the administration and guidance of the Community Volunteer Network, a nonprofit organization.