Family Services of Westchester Inc. will use a $902,000 federal grant to train and support caregivers of adults with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in Westchester County and extend its adult day program services to southern residents of the county living with those diseases.
Officials at FSW headquarters in Port Chester said the three-year grant from the Administration on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will support a four-pronged initiative with an ultimate goal to reduce the disproportionate access in Westchester to services for residents with Alzheimer’s and related dementias and improve the county”™s ability to serve all those in need.
Susan B. Wayne, Family Services of Westchester president and CEO, in the announcement said the 60-year-old nonprofit will partner with the Alzheimer”™s Association, Westchester County Department of Senior Programs and Services, Arc, Fordham University, Burke Rehabilitation Center Memory Evaluation and Treatment Services and others active in the field “to develop a system of care to meet the county”™s needs.”
With the grant, Wayne said, FSW will replicate in White Plains its award-winning adult day program in Mount Kisco, My Second Home; provide respite, training and support to caregivers of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have or are at risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias; provide outreach, gatekeeper training and education in those diseases to residents of southern Westchester; and offer advanced training in behavioral symptom management and expert consultation to caregivers in the county.
Wayne called the timing of the grant “particularly fortuitous” as Family Services of Westchester is building the Lanza Family Center in White Plains this year and expects to open the facility at 106 N. Broadway in early 2015.
“This new multi-generational site was originally conceived as a means to serve residents of southern and central Westchester who did not have access to our adult day program in Mount Kisco,” Wayne said,”so we are delighted that it will be a part of this more comprehensive effort to expand access to care.”
