HomeSelecting Which Services to Offer

Selecting Which Services to Offer

Surveying the Community

Newly forming Villages are often at a loss as to which services to offer. The first impulse is to do a community survey. This has two purposes: to find out what potential members need and to publicize your Village.

A word of advice - don't bother. The USPS mail is the medium most likely to reach the people who join your Village because they need services. But snail mail surveys are very expensive, costing about $1.00 per letter. And, we already know what you will find out. It turns out that with hundreds of Villages now in operation nearly all Villages offer about the same kinds of volunteer services. These services fall into a few categories. The exact names don't matter and often it is difficult to decide which name to apply to a request from a member

Transportation including to medical appointments and shopping
In-home support including handyman services, seasonal changeover
Social and personal help including friendly visits, talking walks, reading to members.
Tech Support including help with computers, cell phones, household electronics.
Convenience Services including running errands, trash takeout, pet care.

The help that seniors need is rarely specific to a single community. Of course, in your community some of these needs may already be met by other agencies. For example, in some cities, transportation needs are met by the municipal government. It is also not that important if you make a mistake in the services you offer. If a member ask for a service that you feel is reasonable you can always either redefine the scope of an existing service or add a new service to your list. Similarly, if some service becomes hard to provide or causes other difficulties you can always drop that service or redefine the conditions for the services. In short, don't worry about your initial choice of services because you can always adjust as you go.

Always make clear to your members that you will try your best to fill a request, but there can be no absolute guarantees.

Instrumental Activities of Daily Living

Seniors who need services from Villages are often have difficulty with the IADLs (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living). According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information these are slightly complex skills. They include handling transportation, shopping, preparing meals, using the telephone or other communication devices, managing medications, doing laundry, housework, basic home maintenance and managing finances. Difficulty managing these tasks are common in patients with early stages of dementia.

The correspondence between the IADLs and the services offered by Villages are obvious.

The software lets you define categories of services and then name specific services within each category. While all Villages will perform pretty much the same services, the names and categories assigned will differ greatly. Generally speaking, a Village can have a large number of narrowly defined services, or a smaller number of broadly defined services. The choice of approach you use is up to you. When trying to find a volunteer to fill a specific member request, narrowly defined services may increase the chance that a person contacted will be interested in he service. But this approach results in few potential volunteers for each service because a person may not feel they are qualified a particular service. The prime example is changing a light bulb which would be classified as a handyman service but many volunteers don't see themselves as handmen.

Broadly or Narrowly Defined Services

This entire issue is unimportant when volunteers are found using the Volunteer Self-Service online listing. In this case, volunteers see the description of each request and can select for themselves which service they wish to do regardless of which services they has signed up to do. If you use the Open Service Request email blast each volunteer sees only the services they have selected. This argues for very broad definitions of services.