Honoring our elders by empowering, celebrating and serving older adults
KC Shepherd's Center's mission is to honor our elders by celebrating, empowering and serving older adults in Kansas City. KCSC's established model of frequent in-home visits provides holistic care that meets nutritional needs, combats social isolation and addresses safety hazards. Our integrated programs are primarily volunteer led and provide peer-to-peer support at little to no cost to our clients and are core to our mission of engaged and purposeful living - by, for and with older adults.
COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVITY AND EQUITY
KC Shepherd's Center is committed to inclusivity and equity. If we don’t intentionally INclude, we unintentionally EXclude.
Drivers of inequitable social, economic, political, built and physical conditions within and across place and race dramatically reduce opportunities for better health and wellbeing of older adults. KCSC serves a unique population, one where the experience of ageism and other “isms’ intersect. Race, ethnicity, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, etc., has for many aging members of our community, in addition to inequitable access to community resources, has also included the isolating and layered effects of a lifetime of systemic racism and/or marginalization.
KCSC is intentional about our efforts to engage older adults from the diverse communities we serve in the planning and decision making of community solutions that affect their health and wellbeing. Armed with robust client and population data, as well as continuous feedback from the communities we serve, KCSC is able to continuously evaluate systems, programs and structures through our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to serve low-income, marginalized and underserved clients with targeted, client-centric policies, personnel, programs and practices. KCSC is on a continuous journey to both be an INclusive organization and to advocate for public policy and funding to support older adults who have traditionally been marginalized through inequitable systems and inequality.
To reduce the barriers for underserved and socially isolated older adults, KCSC engages older adults in a continual dialogue that informs an integrated program model in response to their needs. Our programs and services are informed directly by our community-driven advisory and governance structures, and we work to create ongoing opportunities for older adults from all parts of our community who have a desire to serve in ways that make a meaningful difference in their lives, as well as the lives of the older adults they serve.
KC Shepherd's Center has strategically initiated a growing LGBTQ+ Older Adults Coalition that offers a unique opportunity for support and collaboration for older adults as well as organizations serving the aging population of LGBTQ+ Kansas Citians. In addition to the requested role KC Shepherd's Center gladly serves as a community convener for older LGBTQ+ adults, this stakeholder-driven coalition provides policy engagement opportunities for older people in a community that is historically marginalized and excluded from power and political processes. Many of our employees, including our Executive Director, serve in leadership roles to promote equity and meaningful and healthy aging for Kansas City's vulnerable older adults. Baker serves on the Missouri LGBT Older Adult Planning Committee, as well as House Majority Leader and Board Member for the MO Silver Haired Legislature representing MARC as a Jackson County Representative, advocating for equity and inclusion in public policy at all levels. The purposeful inclusion on our Board of Directors has resulted in 8 of the 15, or 53%, of our board members being talented BIPOC and LGBTQ+ leaders who represent needed skills and experience to achieve our strategic direction.
Equity and INclusion are continually moving targets in human systems, particularly in a political environment that works counter to these principles. KC Shepherd's Center maintains a values-based commitment to advocating for and serving ALL older adults and welcomes input on how to continuously improve our work. Please contact Janet Baker, Executive Director, with any questions, suggestions or to get involved at janet@kcshepherdscenter.org or call her at 816-293-9613.
