Barrier Busters: Wellness for Life!

Detroit, MI, 2004

Seniors are dying before their time. This is a hot-button issue in Detroit where startling new research released by the Detroit Area Agency on Aging shows that Detroit's 60+ seniors (particularly minorities) are dying at a rate 48 percent higher than elsewhere in Michigan. A void in access to health and wellness information and isolation are key factors. Funding cuts due to population loss exacerbate the problem.

In response, WDET-FM and its sub-broadcaster, the Detroit Radio Information Service (DRIS), with the Hannan Foundation / Senior Voice —a Center for Creative Aging, worked to ease isolation through engaging events and targeted radio programs. The project empowered vulnerable seniors with practical information on living well, emphasizing lifestyle factors that lead to chronic disease and death—like hypertension, obesity and nutrition.

A series of town-hall events helped foster community engagement and program content, plus roundtable call-in topics and news segments ran throughout the project. WDET targeted leaders and caregivers with public service announcements. DRIS reached a large at-risk audience (seniors with vision and mobility impairments) while offering a private, closed-circuit support system. Hannan spearheaded outreach and community involvement with its 24-member Aging Services Consortium of Detroit and its multimedia Senior Voice model that trains seniors in grassroots advocacy and journalism.

Opportunities for senior participation and intervention were provided throughout the project: dialogue was created among service providers, with education for seniors and decision-makers about the unique needs of the isolated senior population. The program featured the voices of healthy, able-bodied seniors who served as messengers delivering vital health information, and promoted volunteerism for the target age group.

Programming was delivered to current DRIS listeners, targeted senior housing facilities and new listeners identified through the project. Program elements are also being Web-casted, archived online, and offered to other audio information services and distributed to municipal cable and low-power radio stations as they establish themselves as community information portals.

Awards:

WDET Round Four
$6,300
— WDET/DRIS PSAs

$5,773
— WDET/DRIS Volunteerism

$1,038 in in-kind facilities and staffing for events
— Presbyterian Villages of Michigan

$1,233
— Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO)

$1,562
— Walter and May Reuther Senior Services

$9,875
—Detroit Medical Center (DMC)

DRIS Director Kim Walsh received Women of Communications of Detroit’s Headliner Award for lifetime achievement, citing capacity-building efforts for DRIS.

Barrier Busters and Past Forward co-host, Grace Blakely, was recognized with DRIS’ Mark C. Otis Award for Outstanding Service.

Barrier Busters: Wellness for Life was recognized as Best Community Program at Senior Voice’s annual awards luncheon.

Barrier Busters project helped to leverage a $40,000 City of Detroit Block Grant for 2006.

WDET Round One
Honorable Mention, Best Radio Series — Michigan Associated Press