Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion
co-sponsored by the West Coast Poverty Center, the School of Social Work and the Multi-Gen Concentration, and the Healthy Generations Hartford Center of Excellence
Wednesday, November 8th
4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
School of Social Work, Room 206
We’re all aging. And if we’re lucky enough to live a long life, most of us will need help. 90% of Americans want to age at home, but who will provide the care we’ll need?
CARE pulls back the curtain on the largely unseen world of home elder care. With a verité eye, it follows the stories of care workers and their clients. We meet undocumented Vilma, who lovingly cares for 93-year-old Dee—long an independent businesswoman, who lives 3,000 miles away from her closest family. We go to work with Laurie, mother of 5, who tends to wheelchair-bound Larry in a tiny rural town. We meet Toni whose husband, a CBS executive, suffers from severe Parkinson’s disease. “Peter would die in a nursing home,” Toni says, but keeping him home requires 24/7 help.
CARE depicts the beauty and social importance of home-based care. It also reveals a broken system, where workers make poverty wages and families struggle to pay for the care they need. The film sounds the alarm about a rapidly aging population and an impending crisis of care.
