Helping Hands Outreach

Helping Hands Outreach helps to create a healthy community for older adults and adults with disabilities.

“Helping Hands Outreach has saved my life!” is one comment from a woman in her 80s who had lost any hope of being able to stay in her lifelong home. Her sentiments are echoed by many others who have been helped by neighborly Helping Hands volunteers and staff over the past 14 years. In fact, 411 volunteers and staff have provided 722 persons with over 65,500 hours of services like transportation, homemaking, chores, home repairs and modifications, respite for caregivers, friendly visiting & companionship, caregiver support, and health promotion activities. In a typical month 30 volunteers and professional staff help 90 older adults and adults with disabilities with 439 hours of services.

Our focus is on building healthy older adults and a healthy community.  We do this by taking seriously the last word in our name - "outreach". By building solid relationships with our people we help them move through the challenges of aging and and build their self-confidence and ability to make healthy choices. We recruit and support volunteers throughout our service area who provide neighborly help to others living in their neighborhood. This “neighbor to neighbor” approach builds on trusting relationships, and links the older adults to the broader community.

Our Mission is To help create a healthy community where older adults and adults with disabilities want to live and be a vital part of the community. We connect with the inner circle of family members that support the person and then gently bring alongside them the support of friends and neighbors in the wider caring community.  We have found it very important to listen to people’s hearts so we can best facilitate care. By listening and understanding, we can help persons make the best choices to remain strong and healthy as they age.

We have also been providing an increasing amount of caregiver support services. Since family caregivers provide over 92% of all support given to persons in need, we provide the support and encouragement they need to help them deal with stress and challenges of their caregiving. We have 2 staff persons who have become trained caregiver consultants who are averaging 12 hours weekly supporting caregivers. We also are providing more in-home respite so caregivers can get a break and be refreshed. We have provided education/training sessions and a support group for caregivers that have been well-received.

Another core part of our program focuses on the quality of life of our older adults. We want to encourage our older adults to make healthy lifestyle choices. Studies are clear that sedentary lifestyles place one at risk for disease.  Four years ago we began our “Minutes of Movement” fitness project to help our older adults increase the level of their daily physical activity. We enroll adults in the project meeting with them one-on-one and determining their baseline of activity and then help them set goals to extend their movement. We provide them some movement/exercise opportunities. Many older adults have reported that they feel these activities have been a positive step for them toward improved health. Our regular wellness activities include weekly exercise classes, monthly health presentations, and materials available for older adults to use in their homes. Our bi-monthly newsletters always include helpful information, encouraging stories, and a bit of humor. Monthly social activities also help build the quality of life for our older adults as well. The health & wellness side of our work is expanding each year.

Five years ago we implemented the Stanford model of Chronic Disease Self-Management© series of classes which has received wonderful feedback from participants. We conduct 2 of these annually.  The rate of falls leading to health decline in Minnesota is very high - In response to this challenge, we added the Matter of Balance© series of classes to help reduce the incidence of falls. We also conduct Falls Prevention evaluations of home safety and follow up with persons to assure mitigation of potential risk areas. Two senior health clinics/health fairs annually that include medication reviews by pharmacists complement our falls prevention activities. Our staff is also trained to provide Healthy Eating for Successful Living© classes in our community. All the classes we provide are evidence-based programs and we have seen positive health outcomes from participants taking the classes. Our staff Health & Wellness Coordinator directs these activities with trained volunteer support.

We conduct outcome-based evaluation of our programming annually and adjust to better meet our people's needs. We follow the Principles and Practices of Nonprofit Excellence of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and