Many people living in your community will likely find themselves helping a relative or friend manage their health and wellness. While providing care and support to a relative or friend can be difficult, long-distance care-giving can be particularly challenging. This is the reason the Agency on Aging Northeastern Illinois is participating in Home for the Holidays, an annual public education campaign led by the Eldercare Locator, the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging and the U.S. Administration for Community Living, this year in partnership with the National Alliance for Caregiving.

The Friendship Line is a toll-free line that is available to share a conversation with someone who cares. If you are feeling lonely this holiday season, call the Friendship Line and the person on the other line will love to share a conversation, listen to your story or concern and just lend an ear to those in need. The Friendship Line is also a crisis intervention hotline providing around the clock crisis support services including:

The Illinois General Assembly that will take office in January will include fifty new members: 15 in the Senate and 35 in the House of Representatives. Those totals include eleven who had been appointed during the 100 ^th General Assembly and were elected for the first time in November, 2018. One of those positions is still to be filled: the Senate seat in the 13 ^th District, which Kwame Raoul had filled until his recent election as Illinois Attorney General.

The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is an employment training program for individual’s ages 55 years and better. The program provides participants 20 hours per week of on-the-job training opportunities, at local nonprofits or government agencies, that assist in the development of new and marketable job skills to help you re-enter the workforce. All program participants receive a subsidized hourly wage for training to help offset costs associated with travel to and from their training sites. If you are interested in more information or enrolling in SCSEP, please contact Glenda Love at the Agency on Aging Northeastern Illinois at

630-293-5990.

Starting in 2019, Medicare Advantage plan enrollees will have a longer and more flexible opportunity to change their coverage. The new period, from January 1 to March 31, will allow Medicare Advantage enrollees either to leave their plan and return to original fee-for-service Medicare, with an option to join a standalone drug plan, or they can switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another. This gives them the option to try out the Medicare Advantage plan they originally selected, and either to switch plans or to revert to fee-for-service Medicare if they find their original Medicare Advantage plan was not well suited to their needs.