Bringing Technology to Seniors

Initiative Description

WATAP continues work on the 5-year project funded by King County Veterans, Seniors and Human Services Levy providing assistive technology services and resources to low-income seniors and unpaid caregivers in rural and tribal communities in King County. Our original strategic outreach plan and coordinated work with the outreach and events planners in the rural senior hubs in King County had to be scrapped for most of 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. We were able to host 3 trainings via webinar as part of our public outreach strategy. But we continued to look for venues to connect with the community to promote a healthy independent living, and a means for us to showcase assistive technology and talk about the potential impact in the daily lives of seniors. We participated in the Sno-Valley Senior Center Virtual Health and Wellness Fair on April 6th. The event was sponsored by Shape-Up! and King County EMS and included a free lunch along with a goody bag of handouts and small giveaways from health fair vendors, including WATAP. They provided 115 lunches and goody bags. WATAP also participated in a video connected to the Fair and hosted on YouTube. All of the health fair vendors and providers provided a segment for the video where they spoke about the services and resources available to the Center’s community. Additionally, we were able to demonstrate our Vision and Hearing/Signaling kits to 15 participants during a presentation at senior living and retirement center located in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle on August 2nd. We also left the kits to be used by staff with their residents for a few weeks.

Year of Implementation

2021

AT Activities

State

Washington

Initiative contact information

Alan Knue
aknue@uw.edu