Does your heart beat faster ahead of that big test or
presentation at work? Do your palms get sweaty when confronted with an
overwhelming task or looming event?
If anxiety is impacting your day to day life, it is
important to recognize the signs as well as your triggers. Signs of anxiety can
include intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday
situations (Did I reply to that email? Did that person misunderstand my
tone? Did I pay that bill? Should I have said something different to my child/spouse/coworker/friend?);
fast heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and sometimes feeling tired.
Common triggers for anxiety include existing and/or ongoing
health issues, financial problems, negative thinking, stress, social events,
school or employment.
In order to cope with recurring anxiety it can be beneficial
to eat balanced meals, exercise, and limit alcohol and caffeine intake.
When you find yourself in a moment of heightened anxiety, try
these approaches:
4 – 7 – 8 Breathing Exercise:
The following steps should be carried out in the cycle of a
single breath
First, let your lips part. Make a whooshing sound, exhaling
completely through your mouth.
Next, close your lips, inhaling silently through your nose
as you count to four in your head.
Then, for seven seconds, hold your breath.
Make another whooshing exhale from your mouth for eight
seconds.
The Five Senses
Exercise:
Take a breath and look around you, wherever you are,
try to notice…
5 things that you can see,
4 things that you can feel,
3 things that you can hear,
2 things that you can smell,
And 1 thing you can taste.
This technique can help focus your senses on your
surroundings instead of your anxiety.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation:
Identify a specific muscle group –
your hands, arms, neck, shoulder – and hold that muscle tense for five seconds
then release. Work head-to-toe, tensing and releasing your muscles. By
honing in on each group, you will better understand all of the muscles that can
be affected by anxiety.
When you’re feeling anxious on a regular basis, about
recurring commitments or events, a long-term option to help reduce your
symptoms is journaling. Journaling can be narrative, as in jotting down a few
experiences you had during the day and how those events, interactions or
moments of inspiration made you feel. You can also try gratitude journaling, making
a note of the things you experience during the day for which you are grateful.
You can choose and vary how long that list is each day and how much detail you
want to write.
What if journaling and breathing exercises are not
helping?
Occasional anxiety is an expected part of life, however,
anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with
an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time.
If symptoms interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school
work, or relationships, the best step for you is to seek therapeutic services.
Grant Awarded to JFCS by Janssen to support partnership program with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton
In April 2019, Robert Wood
Johnson University Hospital Hamilton (RWJ) launched Healthy Lives Hamilton,
a program designed to improve quality of life for those living with heart
failure. Through a generous grant by Janssen
Pharmaceuticals, JFCS is now teaming up with RWJ to bring our geriatric
care management skills to offer Healthy Lives Hamilton Plus.
Studies have shown that providing home visits and early
intervention upon discharge for patients with a diagnosis of heart failure have
significantly lowered the risk of readmission. JFCS will provide the services
of a geriatric care manager to discharged RWJ heart failure patients. Our care
manager and a registered nurse will assess the patients in their homes within
24-72 hours post discharge.
The home visit allows the care team to provide health
literacy skills so the patient and caregiver may better understand basic health
information and services to make informed health decisions. These include
medication usage, side effects and discharge instructions. A home visit also
allows the RN to gather information firsthand about which medications are being
taken regularly, and to better identify barriers to medication compliance or
exacerbating factors such as high sodium foods in the kitchen. The goals of
these initial visits are to increase adherence to the discharge plan,
compliance with the new medication regimen, and identify resources that are
needed including home care, medical equipment and/or assistive devices.
Our care manager will assess for activities of daily living, safety, transportation, and the level of caregiver support. Equipping patients with the necessary education and tools at home allows for the early detection of avoidable problems, improving their quality of life and reducing the likelihood of readmission.
In Mercer County, almost 40,000 men, women and children lack
consistent access to enough food to lead healthy, active lives. Often, they
don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
For 20 years, JFCS has maintained a brick-and-mortar
healthy, choice pantry at our Alexander Road offices. The JFCS Yvette Sarah
Clayman Kosher Food Pantry is one of several resources in the community;
however, we recognized that many have difficultly accessing these existing food
pantries and food banks due to limitation in transportation options, mobility
concerns and other obstacles.
The JFCS Mobile Food Pantry will bring the resources of the JFCS pantry on the road to locations across Mercer County. At each location, JFCS will park the fully-stocked truck and distribute groceries to those in need.
When patrons come to the JFCS pantry, they are provided with
guidelines by which to shop and select items. We utilize USDA nutrition
standards for a balanced diet in setting parameters for food selection. Every
patron is allowed the shop privately in the pantry and make their choice of
products in the various categories – grains, proteins, produce, dairy, etc. –
to best meet their dietary needs and preferences.
In designing the mobile experience, we remained committed to
replicating the healthy, choice-based, individualized experience for those
using the Mobile Food Pantry. The Mobile Food Pantry includes two refrigerators
and a freezer to stock fresh and frozen produce, meats, and dairy products,
along with standard shelf-staples. In the mobile experience, patrons will be provided
a shopping list and make selections based on their family size and personal
preference of products.
The Mobile Food Pantry will be making scheduled stops at
established locations in Mercer County including churches, daycare centers,
low-income housing and low-income senior housing. We are partnering with
designated sites so our patrons will not be forced to wait outside during
inclement or extreme weather conditions. Volunteers staffing each distribution
site will be there to “shop” the Mobile Food Pantry based on the completed
lists and bring the bagged order to patrons waiting inside the partner facility
or even directly to their apartment.
The first distribution stops of the JFCS Mobile Food Pantry
will be announced this month and will focus on existing partners in Princeton,
West Windsor, East Windsor and Hightstown.
Meals on Wheels is known across the
country for delivering hot meals directly into the hands of older adults. The
program is designed for those who face challenges in accessing nutritious, hot
meals due to limited mobility and/or limited income.
Why Kosher?
Meals on Wheels is an
incredible resource to aging adults who need the accessibility and nutritional
resource; however, older Jewish adults could not turn to Meals on Wheels if
they wished to maintain a Kosher diet. Kosher Meals on Wheels (KMOW) fills that
gap and allows Jewish seniors to maintain their traditions, bringing a sense of
comfort as they age.
JFCS delivers Kosher Meals
on Wheels to Jewish seniors in West Windsor, East Windsor, Hightstown, Hamilton,
Princeton and Plainsboro. Deliveries are made twice a week and include 5 total
meals, one for each day of the week. The hot, Kosher meals are prepared by our
partner Greenwood House then
distributed by JFCS volunteers to our local communities. Greenwood House staff
and volunteers deliver KMOW to those in the Trenton, Lawrenceville, and Ewing
communities. Meals are $25 per week and some scholarships are available.
Call us at 609-987-8100 to learn
more about how to receive KMOW deliveries.
Interested in delivering more than
a meal to seniors?
We are always looking for motivated
volunteers to serve as KMOW drivers for our local seniors. The older adults who
receive meal deliveries look forward to the friendly face and short
conversation – many recipients face isolation as well as nutrition challenges
as they age. Our volunteers are valuable eyes and ears on the ground for our
staff, regularly reporting back if there are visible concerns of declining health
or living conditions. Our staff has been able to intervene quickly and provide
additional support to the senior in cases where a volunteer has provided
valuable feedback.
If you are interested in becoming a
KMOW delivery driver, contact our Volunteer Coordinator Eden Aaronson at EdenA@jfcsonline.org.
For non-Jewish seniors who do not
need Kosher meals, connect with Meals on Wheels to find
delivery options in your community.
2019 is
quickly coming to an end and the New Year is right around the corner.
The end of
every year end brings a sense of reflection, but when we stand at the precipice
of an entire new decade, we are even more prone to contemplation.
Although I
was not a part of JFCS 10 years ago, in my four years as Executive Director I
can see that JFCS is not the agency it was in 2010. I am incredibly proud of
how the agency – our Board of Directors, our dedicated staff members, and the
community of supporters who make our work possible – have all adapted to the
changing needs in Mercer County.
In the
last year, the agency has made incredible strides expanding the reach of our
programs to better serve those in need of mental health counseling, seniors in
need of supportive services to remain in their homes, and individuals and
families desperately in need of access to nutritious resources found in our
food pantry.
What will the new year and new decade
bring for JFCS?
The
possibilities are endless but I do know that….
Our
counseling department will continue to grow and be available to those who need
therapy. Our team includes bilingual counselors who can provide mental health
therapy in Spanish. Additionally, JFCS is one of the handful of options in
Greater Mercer County available to individuals who have Medicare, Medicaid or
are uninsured.
The senior services team remains dedicated to older adults who wish to remain in their home as long as possible. They ensure that seniors can age with dignity through our array of elder care solutions – grocery delivery to homebound seniors, provision of nutritious meals to low-income seniors at Kosher Cafés, and comprehensive geriatric care through our membership programSecure@Home.
Our food pantry will expand beyond the office walls in 2020 with the official launch of theJFCS Mobile Food Pantry. The team at JFCS recognized the challenges people face in accessing the brick-and-mortar food pantries and food banks available in Mercer County, and developed a solution. JFCS is bringing the resources of our food pantry directly to the people who need it most.
I invite you to grow with our agency into the next decade – it is only through the dedication of our volunteers, our donors, our partners that our agency can continue to serve this community.
If
you and your family are having trouble paying bills, and seeking a resource to
keep food on the table, you will find a different approach at our on-site food
pantry. The Yvette Sarah Clayman Kosher Food Pantry is a healthy-choice pantry
open to anyone living in the Greater Mercer County.
What does it mean to be a choice pantry?
Your
individualized experience will be personal, confidential and respectful at our
food pantry. We stock our pantry with shelf staples, fresh and frozen dairy,
produce, eggs, meat and more. All items in our pantry have been stocked on the
direction of a registered dietitian to ensure we are providing healthy,
convenient options to all. Anyone who utilizes the pantry is allowed to select
the products that meet their personal preferences and dietary needs.
What does a pantry “shop” look like at JFCS?
Individuals
are provided private access to our pantry for a confidential “shopping”
experience. You will be provided guidelines for selecting quantities by
category (example grains include bread, pasta, rice; example dairy include
strong cheese, shelf stable milk, yogurt; etc.) determine by size of your
families (example: a family of 4 can select 4 grain products). A staff member
will help you with selections as well as packing your groceries into bags and
bringing them to your vehicle. Every visitor to our pantry will receive our
regular newsletter with recipes using the pantry resources and helpful tips for
healthy choices beyond our offerings.
Who can visit our food pantry?
If
you’re in an immediate crisis and need food for you or your family, our pantry
is open to anyone on an emergency basis. Call our offices at 609-987-8100 to
confirm we are open and let staff know you are in need of food. A staff member
will meet you and help you “shop” the pantry according to your needs. We will
also walk you through a brief assessment to see how we can further assist –
whether it is setting you up with a monthly shopping schedule at the pantry,
connecting you to one of our other programs or services OR making a connection
to an outside agency for help with employment, financial management or
applications to benefit programs.
Improving convenience with our Mobile Food Pantry.
The JFCS Mobile Food Pantry will be on the road soon. This fully stocked truck will include all the offerings of our on-site pantry, delivered directly to those who need it most. Email us to receive regular updates on the upcoming Mobile Food Pantry stops.
The holidays are a wonderful time for
families to gather and share in memories and traditions. However, meals around
the table can also spur on questions about the health of our aging family
members.
“Did Dad almost trip coming up his own
front step?”
“Did Nanna look this frail last year?”
“Does Uncle Stu seem more forgetful?”
Family gatherings can shine a light on
deteriorating health in our loved ones and be an opportunity to discuss senior
care options from in-home care to assisted living.
What
are signs your loved one needs help?
Some of the most common signs of concern
include*:
Changes in mood or extreme mood swings
Cluttered, dirty and/or disorganized house
Disheveled clothing / poor personal hygiene
Expired/spoiled groceries
Confusion and uncertainty when performing
once-familiar tasks
Forgetfulness
Loss of interest in activities
Trouble getting up from seated position
Unexplained bruises
How
to start the conversation?
As with many difficult topics, beginning
the discussion is often the hardest part. Open-ended questions are the best way
to encourage them to talk. Sit back and really listen to their answers.
These conversation starters may help:
How is it living at home alone? Do you still
feel safe? (OR give specific examples i.e. Are you concerned about the stairs?
Do you have trouble getting into the bath?)
Do you feel lonely sometimes? Would you like to
spend more time with people your own age?
How do you feel about driving? Would you be
interested in other options for transportation, so you don’t have to worry
about getting where you need to go, car maintenance costs, traffic, parking,
etc.?
Is it ever hard to manage your finances and keep
up with paying your bills?
Ever wonder about getting a helping hand with
housekeeping and laundry?
Would you feel less stress if you didn’t have to
worry about the house?
Speaking to your aging loved ones about care options
can be difficult, starting the conversation is the first step. Multiple
conversations may be needed to understand your loved one’s needs and wishes AND
balance those with the best options for a safe, comfortable and fulfilling
lifestyle. Remember these tips to have a helpful conversation each time:
Talk in person. This isn’t a
conversation to have by telephone if you can avoid it. Instead, pick a day when
you and your parent are well-rested and relaxed. Block out a time and a
location where you can talk without interruption.
Empathy, not sympathy. No older
adult wants their child to feel sorry for them. But empathy is another matter.
Your kind, calm voice and demeanor will show you care – and that you’re trying
to understand the fears and frustrations they may feel. The idea of accepting
in-home care or moving to a senior living community is tough. You begin to help
as soon as you really begin to listen.
Don’t rush. Once you’re armed with
knowledge, you may feel ready to make a decision. But your parent may need more
time. Allow them the time they need to find the words to express how they’re
feeling. Coming to an unpressured mutual agreement now will continue to pay
dividends as you move forward together.
Plan to talk again. And again. As
much as you might want to wrap things up in one conversation, the reality is this
will likely be a series of talks. Unless your aging family member is in eminent
danger, that’s okay. It’s a process, not a once-and-done discussion.
The world we live in is quite stressful.
When life feels a little out of control either because you are feeling a
depressed or anxious or believe that anxiety and depression are causing
problems in your life, our therapists can assist you in building the skills to
get back on track.
Anxiety:
How are you going to pay the rent, get promoted, help your child…when
these thoughts run through your head it can cause a significant amount of
stress and anxiety that keeps you in a state of panic. This anxiety can make
you uncomfortable and possibly shut you down from moving forward. We understand
and can help you start to put systems in place to not only make your situation
better but also relax into enjoying life.
Depression: Everyone is sad every now and again…and a
few days can be normal. But if you suffer from prolonged periods of sadness, it
is time to talk to a professional. Depression looks like many things and our
counselors help those in the Greater Mercer County area start to move forward a
bit and combat or at least learn to deal with the sadness and lead a happy and
productive life.
Couples Therapy: Marriage and
relationships, in general, can be difficult to navigate at times. All marriages
have bumps in the road including infertility, financial struggles, differences
of opinions in raising children. It can
be tough. Sometimes talking through your issues with a marriage counselor can
work wonders. Without taking sides our psychologists can help you and your significant
other some different ways to communicate to ease tension and focus on building
your loving relationship.
When you are looking for a therapist
there may be a crisis that you or your entire family is trying to handle. And
if you are looking for a provider who accepts your insurance, those options are
even more limited. Here in Mercer County, NJ, our therapists can help with a
variety of issues and provide coping skills to get your life back on track. We
are able to take most private insurance plans as well as those with Medicare,
Medicaid and the uninsured.
The day to day of life may seem
overwhelming to manage and we are here to help.
Jewish Family &
Children’s Service (JFCS) will be taking its Community Food Pantry on the road
and hosting a Pop-Up Food Pantry at Christ Congregation in Princeton (50 Walnut
Lane) on Thursday, October 24 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Fresh fruits,
vegetables, snack foods, and non-perishable items will be available. A
vegetarian dinner prepared by congregants will be served at 6:00 p.m. and there
will also be a coloring activity for kids. Food pantry distribution is
first-come, first-served until food runs out. Open to the community.
No proof of income is necessary, but you must self-attest to need.
If you plan to attend the dinner, please RSVP to Beth Englezos at bethe@jfcsonline.org or 609-987-8100,
ext. 126.
Jewish Family &
Children’s Service of Greater Mercer County (JFCS) has been operating the
Yvette Sarah Clayman Community Food Pantry since 1999. The Pantry is
choice-based and allows clients to shop for their food instead of picking up a
prepared bag. This follows our philosophy of empowering clients to care
effectively for themselves and others. It is open to people of all
denominations in Mercer County.
Each May, the Administration for Community Living leads our nation in observance of Older Americans Month. We are proud that the work of our Senior Services Department at JFCS so well reflects this year’s themes: Connect, Create, Contribute.
Connect: All our Senior Programs are designed to connect seniors to each other and to the wide variety of resources that are available in our community. Secure@Home and our Geriatric Care Consultations bring the expertise of our geriatric care managers to each individual’s home, for personalized care and support. Jewish bereavement group, caregiver support groups and the Dementia Caregiver Connection all enable those affected to share their painful experiences with others and also receive support and information from knowledgeable sources. Nosh & Knowledge events bring dynamic learning to our community. Friendly Visitors pairs volunteers and older adults for a fulfilling experience for both on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.Beginning in July, we will partner with Greenwood House to create a social gathering for anyone affected with memory challenges and their care partners at Friend’s Circle: A Memory Café.
Create: At JFCS, we are always looking for new ways to respond to community needs, on our own and in partnership with other organizations. This year we have begun several new Senior Nutrition Initiatives to support the health and mental well-being of our seniors. Cooking Companions debuts this month as part of a first-time innovative national grant to bring volunteers and isolated seniors together to cook and share a meal. Shabbat on Wheels is a new addition to our long-standing Kosher Meals on Wheels program to provide a traditional Shabbat meal to seniors once each month. And our Healthy @Home Senior Nutrition Program works in conjunction with our unique kosher food pantry and our on-staff dietician to meet the dietary needs of low-income, homebound older adults in our community.
Contribute: Many of the programs mentioned above provide opportunities for seniors to contribute to their success as volunteer helpers, as well as recipients. And each and every program contributes to the overall well-being of seniors in our community by paying attention to ALL aspects of their lives: health, safety, nutrition, intellectual stimulation, socialization, spirituality and support in hard times.
We at JFCS are so proud of our Senior Service. We want to add a 4th C to the list of themes:
Compassion: This is the watchword for everything that we do at JFCS in working with our Seniors, our volunteers, and everyone who comes in contact with our Agency. We continue to look for new and exciting ways to further the goals of Older Americans Month not just in May but throughout the year.
