Dispatches from the field: Building bonds across generations

“Carol has talked about changing norms and I think that’s central to our aspirations — to extend the grandparent relationship beyond families, into communities. This means connecting people who might not be ‘related’ in a traditional sense, but have so much to gain through forging bonds and helping each other. This isn’t just a one-way route for older people to help younger people. There’s so much mutual benefit and joy to be realized.” – Marc Freedman

Interview with Carol Larson and Marc Freedman

In your recent opinion piece in Newsweek, you wrote about the goal of mobilizing “an army of elders helping children in their early years.” You envision Caring Corps participants assisting young children in childcare, preschool settings, and even on the playground. What led you to come up with this concept?

Marc: When Climate Corps was announced as part of President Biden’s Build Back Better proposal, there was an opportunity to think about a companion effort that would address the issues of care.

Carol: We meant the Newsweek piece to be a clarion call at a high level — to stimulate conversation and thought about this intergenerational opportunity. Investment in early childhood has far-reaching consequences. Many kids who are born now in the United States will live 100 years, so the importance of those early years can’t be overstated — what occurs in early childhood will have implications for those 100 years. But it also has implications for relationships among the four generations that now live in almost equal distribution in the US.

Marc and I feel this is the right time to take action to bring the generations together. There’s been increasing age segregation in our society, and also a revolution in what we understand about the importance of those first five years and the role relationships play in a child’s emotional and cognitive development. The other thing that makes it timely is what we know about the effects on one’s health — mental and physical — from loneliness and isolation, with those factors having only been exacerbated with the pandemic.

Is there a history of having older adults assist in early childhood programs?

Marc: The connection between older adults and early childhood settings has existed for a long time. For example, Experience Corps, which I co-founded in 1996, has focused on connecting adults 50 and older with young children to help kids read by the third grade. The Experience Corps concept was originally proposed by John Gardner, and I jointly developed the program with Linda Fried, now dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. It was launched when Bill Clinton was president. Animated by his interest in national service, Clinton created AmeriCorps, and we thought, “Well, this should be an opportunity for older people to serve, too.” We think Build Back Better — in whatever form it takes — could provide that same opportunity through a Caring Corps today. Experience Corps still exists and is now under the umbrella of AARP. Additionally, tens of thousands have been part of the Foster Grandparents Program since 1965 (now part of AmeriCorps) doing similar work with kids. In other words, the idea behind Caring Corps is one that’s been well tested.

What are some of your early thoughts about the model for Caring Corps?

Marc: When we started conceiving the model, we wanted to do more than just advance a broad concept, but we also recognized how difficult it is to scale a narrow program. As a result, our vision is to unite an array of programs that meet a set of core principles. That might require doing some things differently to meet local circumstances and opportunities.  But the overarching goal is to work with kids from birth through five while making use of older adults in a significant way — not just stuffing envelopes, but working directly with young people. We’re also interested in providing older adults with the opportunity to use a period of service in Caring Corps as a platform for an “encore” career working in the early childhood arena, offering them the training and support to do that. Again, we could see a variety of different models existing as part of Caring Corps, with a common identity and affiliation, and some shared training and recruitment.

Carol:  We also think a lot will stem from innovation at the local, county, or state level, with people asking, “How do we connect these two generations? What makes sense for us? How can our childcare and preschool communities work within a Caring Corps framework?” Of course, it will require money. It takes money to incentivize people to try something new. It takes money to offer training and backbone services.

Speaking of money, in your proposal you suggest that Caring Corps could be part of Build Back Better, but what if the legislation doesn’t pass? What kind of funding would a program like this require? Do you see it as a public-private partnership?

Carol: Even if Build Back Better doesn’t pass, the American Recovery Act already put massive monetary infusions into childcare, preschool, and early education. But it’s still important to consider how we’ll best manage the current workforce shortage. We didn’t even have the people we needed for pre-pandemic levels of care.

Marc: One reason I invoked the Foster Grandparents Program earlier is because there is public funding already going into these kinds of efforts. You can almost think of the Foster Grandparents Program as a demonstration project that lasted half a century. Now, there’s a moment to go beyond that demonstration to do something at a scale commensurate with the need, opportunity, and demographics. We could do a lot of creative work at the policy level, even going beyond conventional funding for services.

On the private side, given how Caring Corps can address issues like loneliness and isolation — which can lead to physical and emotional health issues — there may be some interesting ways that health care systems could see this as a way to reduce health costs. And philanthropy can play a tremendously important role in developing some of these models and underwriting the research to show what works and what doesn’t.

Are there interesting models that you’re looking at in other parts of the world?

Marc: There are interesting global examples of how this could be taken to a larger scale. Probably the shining city on the hill is Singapore, which has poured the equivalent of about $2.4 billion into a place about the size of Los Angeles to create what they describe as a village for all ages, building it around the concept of intergenerational harmony.

As an example, they’ve mandated that every new preschool or senior center that’s built in Singapore be co-located, so older and younger people are in close proximity. Any new housing blocks that are constructed in Singapore are built around the idea of three-generation flats. They’ve also envisioned a volunteer corps of 100,000 older people at least partly focused on helping young people. It’s an example of a defined geographic area that’s taken this idea to a systemic level.

What do you see as the next steps in getting the Caring Corps concept out into the world?

Carol:  We need good case studies, articles, videos, podcasts, and whatever else can show in a visceral, emotional way the magic that can happen when you get generations together. Government, private sector, and philanthropy need to provide funds to stimulate innovation and support organizations that strengthen and expand programs that have vibrant intergenerational connections. We also need additional research and an increased understanding of the demographics — the needs and desires of older persons and teachers/caretakers of the youngest children. We’re trying to simultaneously talk to people at the state and national level about how they’re planning to meet the shortage of childcare workers. Meanwhile, I’m hoping this public policy train leaves the station.

Speaking of the worker shortage, do you see Caring Corps as an interim solution to address this issue specifically or are you thinking of it as a longer-term investment?

Marc: We’re definitely thinking longer term. Carol has talked about changing norms and I think that’s central to our aspirations — to extend the grandparent relationship beyond families, into communities. This means connecting people who might not be “related” in a traditional sense, but have so much to gain through forging bonds and helping each other. This isn’t just a one-way route for older people to help younger people. There’s so much mutual benefit and joy to be realized.