Jewish Family Services serves approximately 1,100 clients who are 65 and older, about half of whom have mobility challenges. Many of these clients might be in nursing homes without the wraparound services JFS provides, including deliveries from its food pantry, JET Express rides, and handyman services through Help@Home.
And now, JFS is facing a very different challenge to helping its seniors remain safely at home: getting them vaccinated against COVID-19. The same challenge applies to the agency’s roughly 60 staff members and approximately 300 volunteers.
One client success story is Gitla Doppelt, 93, a Holocaust survivor. JFS, in partnership with the Johnson County Health Department, was able to get Doppelt her first dose at a vaccination site in Shawnee. By chance, the success came on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It was a team effort, said Laura Gilman, JFS’s director of older adult services. After a Johnson County nurse alerted Gilman to the slot, she tapped emergency assistance funds to pay for snow removal on Doppelt’s driveway. A JET Express driver took her to the site. Gilman went, too, just to see how the process went.
With waiting and things, the process took an hour at the clinic. Gilman said that was not bad because the facility had a wheelchair for Doppelt as they were proceeding through the line.
If push came to shove, Gilman said JFS could serve each client on an individual basis. She and JFS CEO Don Goldman said the agency is working with community health centers, and other partners, to see if they can set up a clinic where several clients can get vaccinated at once.
“We are all on team vaccinate,” Gilman said, “and I think we can work smarter, and not harder.”
The fact that JFS operates on both sides of the state line is both a blessing and a curse, they said. On the one hand, they have more potential partners. But on the other hand, the agency has to contend with various prioritization systems set by health authorities in Kansas and Missouri and them being implemented in a variety of ways in local jurisdictions.
For instance, Goldman said, Johnson County has opened up eligibility to people who are 80 and above. Jackson County, he said, did open it up to people 65 and older, but pulled back amidst worries about being able to serve the potential numbers.
Even if vaccinations are made available to more people, Goldman said, that does not mean all older adults can take advantage of the opportunity. They can’t just hop in their car and go, and then stand in line. Nor, he said, are many older adults equipped to deal with the various online signup systems.
Health authorities have made nursing homes a top priority because they have experienced so many COVID-19 outbreaks. “Homebound older adults have not gotten the same attention,” Goldman said “and that is who we serve.”
Village Shalom started vaccinating its residents on Jan. 15.
On the staff side, as of last week, about two-thirds of the agency’s 60 workers had received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccine. The goal is for every staff member to be vaccinated, Goldman said.
A few have expressed reservations about the safety of the vaccine, he said. But in a recent staff survey, Goldman said, altruism was the overriding sentiment among staff hesitant to get vaccinated. They questioned whether they should get the shot before their clients.
“One of the reasons that I finally have moved to the position that we should roll out the vaccine to staff is because our staff is going to do good with this vaccine,” Goldman said. “They are going to be able to have protection so we can go and be with our clients and know that we are safe with them.”
Getting more client-facing volunteers vaccinated is also a priority, the two JFS officials said, because that means more helpers to give rides, deliver groceries and provide all the other services that help keep seniors in their homes.
“Think about the machine that is JFS,” Gilman said, noting all the services the agency provides to seniors. Volunteers, she said, are an “integral part of the puzzle in allowing them to stay in their homes.”
Some volunteers have chosen not to serve during the pandemic, leading to about a 40% drop in manpower. Getting more JET Express drivers is a priority, so they can provide vaccine transportation. JFS will provide masks, wipes, air filters to ensure the safety of drivers and their passengers.
“The systems set up by the states has not yet thought through the volunteer side,” Goldman said, “but we are talking to some of our partners who understand that volunteers do real staff work to see if we can get them vaccinated.”
Goldman said he would like to see local health authorities adopt methods from other states, such as providing drive-up vaccination sites. One of the big considerations JFS has now is the walking accessibility of any facility it might find that can do group vaccinations.
Goldman has confidence that the situation will be much improved in three to five months. But, he said, “I think the next couple of months are going to be really challenging.”
The JFS officials spoke to The Chronicle a day after the Jewish Federations of North America hosted a webinar discussing what the vaccine distribution means for the Jewish community.
Panelists Dr. Mark McClellan and Marissa Schlaifer fielded questions from Erika Rudin-Luria, president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and from the audience.
McClellan is a former administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Schlaifer is a JFNA board member who works as vice president, policy & regulatory affairs at OptumRx, a health technology company.
Both panelists agreed that one way that Jewish organizations, and other trusted messengers, can help is by driving home the point to front-line health workers the importance of taking the vaccine.
McClellan expressed concern with reports that, in some areas, as many as half of the health care workers had declined to sign up for the shot. Health workers have expressed concern about the safety of the vaccine, which was fast-tracked by federal health authorities.
But the expedited process did not sacrifice safety, Schlaifer said. The scientists and professionals at the
FDA, she said “dug into all the data the same way they would in any other vaccine.” The difference is that they did some of the work concurrently as opposed to one after the other, but she said, “that does not mean steps along the way were dropped out.”
McClellan also urged local organizations not to get caught up in the hype about overall numbers, such as how many people have been vaccinated versus how many of the doses had been distributed. It is important, he said, to focus on uptake disparities between demographic groups, including minority populations.
One big lesson from other states, the panelists said, is that uptake is better when messaging is coming from local pharmacies and local physicians. That is typically “someone they know, and someone who looks like them,” Schlaifer said.
She noted a partnership in Washington, D.C., where the Jewish Community Center is working with Hillels on college campuses in town to partner students with older adults. The students are helping the seniors work through the process of getting signed up for the vaccination. The response among seniors has been overwhelming, she said.
“I think it is something other communities can try and do,” Schlaifer said.
In addressing the variants that have sprung up in South Africa, Brazil and elsewhere, McClellan said there is “good reason to be concerned” about the mutations, even though these adaptations have been expected. The best offense is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, he said
“We are learning more and more every day,” Schlaifer said, “so stay tuned.”
McClellan also held out hope that, in line with efforts by the Biden administration, that all kindergarten through eighth grade students who are not yet back in school could be back in the classroom within the next three months. He said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that it is safe for kids to be in school with all the safety precautions that have been talked about since the start of the pandemic.
