Celebrating National Social Work & Nutrition Month

March is National Social Work Month and National Nutrition Month. In celebration, Iona would like to introduce our teams working in these fields and explain what they do for our clients every day.

Social Work Team

Social workers are critical to Iona’s mission. They protect vulnerable older adults in the community and provide assistance and support to family caregivers. Case management services provided by Iona social workers might include helping older adults apply for public benefits, scheduling medical appointments, and assessing how well an older person is managing on their own .

Many of our social workers provide specialized supports. In Iona’s Money Management Program, social workers help older adults manage their finances and work to prevent financial abuse. Dementia Navigators, who are embedded within Sibley Memorial Hospital’s citywide Club Memory® program, support older adults with dementia and their family caregivers by providing care plans, activities, and linking them to community programs.

Other Iona social workers facilitate support groups or provide mental health psychotherapy for older adults and family caregivers. Iona’s two adult day health centers–the Wellness & Arts Center and The Washington Home–each provide an onsite social worker for participants and their families. Each year, graduate social work interns from local universities get in-depth field experience by supporting Iona clients and programs. Finally, Iona’s Helpline is staffed five days a week by social workers ready to answer questions and offer help to the community.

Nutrition Team

Iona’s Nutrition team works quickly–and for good reason. Each year, thousands of older adults across Washington, DC rely on Iona to facilitate the delivery of meals, groceries, basic necessities, and nutrition supplements.

Services provided by our Nutrition team include:

• Nutritional counseling, assessments, and information
• Nutrition supplements to prevent malnutrition
• Home delivered weekday and weekend meals (provided with support from the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living)
• Iona’s Food Pantry Plus, which provides free home deliveries of shelf-stable food, toiletries, paper products, and cleaning supplies

Thank you to our incredible teams for their hard work supporting older adults and family caregivers!

By Lauren Stephenson