Young Children - May 2008 - (Page 80) w? I Dra ld Shou You!” t “Wha Draw I’ll Facilitating Interaction and Learning Opportunities in Intergenerational Programs The children arrive . . . It’s a lazy, quiet morning at The Mount. Breakfast has just been cleared, and now the elders sit in recliners or in their wheelchairs, some glancing at the television, others with heads hung low, most napping. No one is talking or visibly interacting with others. The only sound comes from the clink of dishes at the sink and the occasional tweet of a pet parakeet. Just then, like magic, the children arrive, full of pep and exclamations of Hello! Hello! Instantly it’s as if a switch has been thrown. Heads lift, grins grow, and eyes flash with curiosity and interest. It’s another intergenerational art class. Yippee! Rachel M. Heydon and Bridget S. Daly AT ONE TIME The Mount, or Providence Mount St. Vincent in Seattle, Washington, was a typical long-term-care facility with a hospitallike setting. Then, about 10 years ago, through the twin visions of residentdirected care and age desegregation, the intergenerational (IG) shared-site format was born. In IG shared-site programs, different generations (in this case, young children and elders) “receive ongoing services and/or programming at the same site, and generally interact through planned and/or informal intergenerational activities” (Goyer & Zuses 1998, v). About 400 adults between the ages of 29 and 103—with an average age of 89—live at The Mount. The Intergenerational Learning Center (ILC), the child care portion of the site, provides care to 125 children ranging in age from 6 weeks to 5 years. ILC is an NAEYC-accredited program serving the community as well as Mount employees. The center is open five days a week. The building is designed to facilitate ongoing, planned and spontaneous IG interactions. The ILC, located in the hub of the building’s activity (close to the coffee shop), has many windows; a satellite child care area sits in the middle of resident neighborhoods (the areas in which residents live, including separate bedrooms and shared leisure and eating spaces); and there are common IG areas. The children’s outdoor play area includes a covered deck that is accessible by adults with mobility needs, and it is visible from many of the residents’ rooms. History of IG programs While some early childhood educators may be unfamiliar with IG programs, they are not new. The U.S. Foster Grandparent Program of 1963, in which older adults were employed to work with children and youth considered “at risk,” was one of the first systematically planned IG programs in the United States (Larkin & Newman 1997). Since then, IG programs, including IG shared-site programs, have grown exponentially in North America (Kuehne & Collins 1997). The growth of programs may in part be due to the benefits that research identifies for both adults and children who participate. Children gain a sense of continuity in their lives where there might otherwise be little intergen- Rachel M. Heydon, PhD, is assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. She teaches courses in early literacy and curriculum and conducts studies on such teaching and learning phenomena as successful intergenerational learning. She is a former elementary school teacher. rheydon@uwo.ca Bridget S. Daly, MFA, directs the art program at Providence Mount Saint Vincent in Seattle, Washington. Her intergenerational art classes engage seniors, preschoolers, and eighth-graders. johnle@oz.net ® 1, 2, 8 80 Young Children • May 2008
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.