The Family & Nursing Care Foundation, a fund of the Community Foundation for Montgomery County, issued a $10,000 grant to Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) on Monday, Aug. 1, to provide in-home care private duty services to at-risk, aging Holocaust survivors in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and in Washington, D.C.
The grant will be used to provide approximately 460 hours of in-home, hands-on care so that these survivors may age in place. Services will be provided by certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and certified medication technicians (CMT), and will include help with bathing, dressing, toileting, grooming, mobility, medication monitoring, and general companionship.
JSSA has been serving area Holocaust survivors for over 25 years. There are currently 413 survivors who are a part of the program in Montgomery County. The average age of these survivors is 86 years old and 84 percent are living near or below the Federal Poverty level.
Selection and provision of in-home services for Holocaust survivors is based on eligibility through The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and secondly through the Claims Conferences’ Functional Assessment tool. Those who are verified as Holocaust survivors are eligible to be assessed for home care services. The assessment examines areas of functionality and, from there, the appropriate services are determined.
The Family & Nursing Care Foundation provides grants to organizations throughout the region to improve educational access for prospective caregivers and to ensure that low-income seniors have aging-in-place, in-home care options. Annually, the Foundation gifts almost $100,000 to non-profits throughout the community that support the Foundation’s missions. For more information about the Holocaust Survivor’s Program or JSSA, contact Kitty Wojcik, grant manager, at 301-610-8410 or by email at kwojcik@jssa.org. For more information about the Family & Nursing Care Foundation, contact Sandy Kursban, founder, 301-588-8200 or by email at skursban@familynursingcare.com.