Program trains older adults in online work

Tony Sarmiento would like to see every senior citizen in America online.

Connecting with friends, family and others with mutual interests through email and social media staves off isolation, said Sarmiento, executive director of Senior Service America. Online games and puzzles, as well as looking up new things, can keep the mind sharp.

But most important, Sarmiento said, more and more seniors need employment -- and they need computer skills not only to compete in today's marketplace, but to even search and apply for jobs.

"The job market's changed dramatically, even in retail," said Sarmiento, who was in town Friday to award a grant from Senior Services America to the Community Action Committee's Senior Community Service Employment Program, or SCSEP (pronounced "SeeSep"). Some people lost investments intended for retirement in the economic downturn, some need to work to support grandchildren they're raising, and "some just never got a chance to retire," he said.

The U.S. Department of Labor funds SCSEP, a national program that prepares seniors to re-enter the workforce and then finds them temporary "training" positions at local nonprofits to obtain the skills they need to get full-time jobs. The grant, the second CAC's SCSEP has gotten from Senior Service America through the Department of Labor, will largely cover wages for these part-time, minimum-wage "training" jobs.

The program covers how to find a job, prepare a resume, dress for work, deal with a changing employment environment, financial planning -- and, more and more, gaining confidence using computers, tablets and iPhones and common programs and apps. CAC's Brenda Tate administers SCSEP, which includes a Friday-morning session weekly at the John T. O'Connor Senior Center where seniors tutor other seniors in the use of technology.

SCSEP can accommodate 41 seniors at a time and has a waiting list of about 50. As seniors find employment, they "roll off" SCSEP, and others take their place -- about 66 seniors a year, Tate said. CAC follows former SCSEP participants for about a year, she said. Statewide, about 41 percent of those who leave SCSEP leave for jobs.

"Some of them have zero computer skills" before enrolling, Tate said. "Our goal is training them to become gainfully employed."

To apply, trainees must be at least 55 years old and have an income that's less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level.

Nationally, about 64 percent of seniors are online now, said Senior Services America administrator Cecilia Garcia. But that percentage plummets to about 20 percent among lower-income seniors, especially those with less than a high-school education.

"How do we reach them?" Garcia said. "The key is to have trusted community centers" like O'Connor, where seniors are already comfortable coming for other services, provide the training.

Garcia said as baby boomers become the older group, more of them will enter older age already having computer skills. But America isn't there yet.

"More than 18 million seniors are still offline," Garcia said.

Tennessee spent $8,660,178 in fiscal year 2015 on its SCSEP program, which served nearly 1,500 seniors in most counties in the state. The proposed 2016 budget cuts that funding by $685,000, which Sarmiento said will reduce the number of seniors served in Tennessee by 118, as well as reducing the number of hours these workers are paid to perform community service at nonprofits.

"Our big challenge is, how we do reach those older people who have less income and less education and (show) them that it's easy and it's worthwhile to get online?" he said. "We know, based on research, that the 18 million senior adults who are offline today don't believe it's worth all the hassle of learning something new and the additional cost."

But without those skills, finding a job can be challenging, he said -- and many seniors need the income.

"A lot of it is because they've lost pensions, because pension coverage has changed dramatically from what our parents used to enjoy," Sarmiento said. "Social Security is still there, but oftentimes they haven't worked enough quarters. Huge numbers of baby boomers are now having to work past what is considered the traditional retirement age."

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