My Account
While the chief executive of Age Concern Rodney, Catherine Smith of Army Bay, is quick to point out that the rewards of working with the elderly far outweigh the negatives, she’s not about to say it’s always an easy job. She has been abused by clients and members of their families, threatened and even physically attacked. But a determination to rise above the inevitable challenges that emerge when hard decisions are made has seen Age Concern prosper under her guidance. Since setting up 16 years ago, Age Concern has expanded its services, taken on staff and cultivated a team of valuable volunteers. Last year was one of its busiest ever. At 63, Catherine has no plans to slow down, but she told Jannette Thompson that she has learned some valuable lessons about time-management and knows never to under-estimate the power of a hug …
Older people are a treasure because they have such a wealth of knowledge and wisdom learned over a whole lifetime. Sometimes when I get stuck and need a bit of advice, I’ll give one of my clients a call and discuss the problem with them. It seems such a waste the way society puts these people ‘out to pasture’. They almost become invisible. One of my favourite programmes run by Age Concern is called Through Others Eyes. We take young teenaged students from the college, dress them up as if they were elderly or had a disability, and send them off shopping. At first they always show a lot of bravado, but at the end of the exercise, you wouldn’t believe they were the same group of kids. It really opens their eyes to the day-to-day struggles some people face.
Loneliness is a big issue for the elderly. There are a lot of lonely people in Rodney – some by choice, but not all of them. Interestingly, there are also a lot of children in our communities who have little, if any, interaction with older people often because they have no grandparents or elderly relatives. The two groups have so much they can give one another but it’s a matter of finding ways for them to interact. Last year we launched the Senior Games, at the Leisure Centre, during the Olympics. It was a chance to celebrate the abilities of the elderly and show older people in a different light. It was such a success that we’re doing it again in August, but this year we’re hoping to involve children from Stanmore Bay School in some of the less competitive afternoon activities. We’re going to target children who don’t have grandparents and, who knows, maybe relationships will develop that will be ongoing.
One the highlights of my years with Age Concern was being involved in the Christmas Day luncheon on the Hibiscus Coast, which started in 2000. I remember coming home from Christmas holidays the previous year to a phone full of messages from clients who’d had sad and lonely Christmases. It was terrible to listen to their stories. I rang Belinda Greenwood, who was coordinating food parcels through the Community House, with the idea of putting on a Christmas Day luncheon the following year. She was really enthusiastic so we formed a committee and New World as a major sponsor. At our first luncheon, we served 300 meals and gave presents to everyone attending. It was the most amazing feeling seeing all those people together enjoying themselves. It became an annual event, supported by the goodwill and energy of the community, and is now run by the churches. One of the challenges Age Concern faces at the moment is attracting volunteers in the 50 to 70 age group – some of our volunteers at the moment are older than the people they visit.
I guess my affinity for the elderly comes from a childhood enriched by elderly relatives. I grew up in Avondale, in a devout Catholic family. I went to church schools, attending church three times a week, and each year we fasted during Lent, attending mass at 6am every day for six weeks. I can’t imagine my children doing this; it was very hard. When I left school, I worked at the ANZ Bank, in Queen Street, for eight years. My husband Roger and I met at the church in Avondale and were married when I was 22. We have three beautiful children and two adorable grandchildren. Friends used to tell me how fantastic it was to be a grandparent, but I had to experience it to truly understand what they meant. When you’re raising your own children, you’re normally too busy making ends meet and looking after them to really enjoy them – at least that was my experience. But it’s wonderful having the time to watch my grandchildren grow and to be a part of their lives. My car just won’t drive past their house without turning in!
I loved sport when I was young and played a lot of netball, tennis and indoor basketball. But one morning, when I was 33, I woke up with a headache and one side of my face was numb. I screamed and carried on a lunatic because I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I spent months in hospital while the eye specialists tried to work out what was wrong. They thought I’d had a stroke. Finally, about a year later, they diagnosed optic neuritis, which is a fairly rare disease, but by that time I was completely blind in that eye. I have to be careful but thankfully, my last visit to hospital for my eyes was 17 years ago.
Age Concern first came to Rodney in 1997 when I started working as a field officer for 10 hours a week, under the umbrella of Age Concern North Shore. I’d been working in and managing rest homes prior to joining Age Concern so I was already becoming familiar with issues concerning the elderly. By 1999, we could see there was a need for a local service so we became incorporated in our own right and set-up in our present offices, in Orewa. By 2007, the workload had grown so much that Age Concern chair at the time, Tom Mayne, and I agreed that we needed to employ staff. We’d already identified that a lot of elderly people in Rodney were missing their hospital appointments due to lack of transport and, as a result, were ending up in hospital. I put a proposal to Waitemata District Health Board to set-up a hospital shuttle for all residents, not just the elderly, servicing west to Helensville and north as far as Wellsford. It’s been a real success story for both the community and Age Concern. It’s raised our profile and helps us identify people who may need our help, and it allowed us to employ two drivers and two new staff members.
After a lifetime of working with the elderly, I find it surprising that I’m struggling to cope with my own mother’s ailing health. A stroke two years ago caused short-term memory loss. Despite the fact that it’s difficult to have a conversation with her, we find ways to communicate. I try to organise activities that remind her of our family bond – eating a Jellytip ice cream, browsing through photograph albums or just painting her nails. But just like many of the families I deal with, I also do a lot of crying.
You have to be a good listener in this job and I find that treating people with kindness and respect is very important. My advice to people is never be afraid to say ‘thank you’ or to give someone a hug. I used to give out Free Hug Coupons during presentations, which were redeemable from ‘any participating human being’. I remember once talking to a group of young teenagers about elder abuse. I noticed that there was one girl who just sat with her head down and didn’t seem to interact with the others. I handed out the coupons and they all giggled and then went around hugging everyone – all, that is, except this one girl. Afterwards, I told her how I’d noticed that she hadn’t participated. She started telling me things about her childhood, which was a very unhappy story. And then I asked if I could give her a hug? You know, that girl – and it still makes me cry today to think about it – hugged me so hard it hurt. It was only a small thing on my part, but I think it made a real difference to her.
