Sunday, March 1, 1998

Care Team goes where many fear to tread

By CECILE S. HOLMES / Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON -- It is a tradition, both Jewish and Christian, to care for the old, welcome the stranger and assist the very ill.

The compassion of volunteers with a Houston care-giving ministry stems from those traditions and the individuals' inner sense of calling. Both strengthen the outreach of the Foundation for Interfaith Research and Ministry, which touches lives in dismal circumstances.

Originally developed to provide care, continuing support and training for AIDS patients, the foundation's Care Team program also serves people affected by other chronic illnesses and conditions.

Foundation volunteers go where many fear to tread: into the trauma of lifelong partnerships destroyed when one partner contracts AIDS, into the delicate uncertainty of families watching a parent with Alzheimer's disease drift away, and into the fear and loneliness of a once-strong man fighting to recover from a debilitating stroke.

"It's physical, spiritual, social and emotional support that we're about," says Ferne Winograd, longtime volunteer with Care Team Ministry.

The outreach of the 20-member team on which she serves includes work with an elderly woman who lives alone, a person with AIDS and a 72-year-old stroke victim. In each case, the team assists both patient and family.

"It's specifically directed to provide in-home support and care for chronically or terminally ill and seriously disabled people," said Ron Sunderland, the ministry's co-founder and a recipient of the Rosalynn Carter Institute's Caregiving Award.

Having a Care Team to rely on during the ongoing stress of a terminal illness can bring a family from despairing to coping, he said. With help, families care for loved ones at home, deferring or avoiding nursing home placement. Lonely, ill people can have someone other than family to talk to. Terminally ill people can confide fears to trained listeners. Exhausted family care-givers get a break.

Eleanor Bragman, 70, says she needs the foundation's help. Her life shattered seven years ago when her husband, Robert Bragman, 72, had a massive stroke while driving. Their son and daughter, both grown, live away from Houston. Reared in New York, she has no family to turn to for assistance.

"Fortunately we have this help, but the running of the entire household has fallen on my shoulders," she said. "I have to take care of everything."

Her husband needs help with bathing, dressing and other simple tasks. Slowly he has learned to walk and talk again. But his outlook and personality have changed from the days when he was a hard-driving mechanical engineer. His smile is strong and frequent, but pain and shyness over his condition make him reluctant to go out or speak in public.

And his wife is unwilling to leave him alone.

"He doesn't like to speak in front of other people now, and he was always a tremendous speaker," she said. "He delivered lectures. He traveled all over the world on business. This is really difficult for him."

And for her.

The Care Team support of Ferne Winograd and others like her has been essential, giving Eleanor Bragman a little free time and a sense of relief. Friday evenings, a Care Team volunteer will visit with her husband if she wants to attend services for Jewish Shabbat. It has also made Winograd and Bragman friends.

Both are members of Congregation Beth Israel in southwest Houston. In such a large synagogue, they might never have gotten to know each other without the Care Team connection.

"Our temple is very large. The more people you meet there and become close with, it makes everything warmer when you are there," Winograd said.

Winograd's team works with a cross section of needy people. Some have no connection with the churches or synagogues team members attend. But the foundation's Care Teams provide a link needed by people even in small congregations, Sunderland said.

Families coping with terminal illness are so overwhelmed that a congregation's traditional approach to ministry may no longer work.

"The Care Team model puts in place a way of responding to chronic needs that fills a gap in the services of many congregations," he said.

Since the foundation began, thousands of Houstonians and their families have benefited from others' generosity. Donations are made in dollars and in time.

It is the volunteer hours that sustain the ministry. About 1,500 volunteers from 70 Houston churches and synagogues serve on 70 Care Teams. Each year, they give more than 80,000 hours.

The foundation, which may be the nation's only nonprofit established to develop such teams, began 10 years ago. Its model has been used by more than 70 other programs in 30 states to meet the needs of people with AIDS and other chronic and terminal conditions

Advanced drug therapy treatment and other factors are changing the acute-care needs of people with AIDS, said the Rev. Earl Shelp, co-founder and president. In response, projects in other cities are following the foundation's lead and considering building Care Teams to provide relief for other health conditions.

"We did not see foresee the potential of the Care Team concept and model for ministry when we began to care for people dying from AIDS in 1985," Shelp said.

In Houston, that approach is used to minister to people living with catastrophic illnesses and their care-givers. The foundation's model also influences overall outreach for individual churches and synagogues. For example, it can:

-- Invigorate care-giving in congregations and sharpen a church or synagogue's self-understanding as a community of faith.

-- Help congregations develop a strategic safety net for the vulnerable, including lower income people whose health care and social needs may otherwise be neglected.

-- Deepen the faith of Care Team members and enhance Christians' sense of discipleship and Jews' understanding of "doing mitvoh," or good deeds.

Jody Winograd, Ferne Winograd's daughter, recalls the summer she and her family joined a Care Team. That was 5-1/2 years ago, shortly before she left Houston to attend college in Boulder, Colo.

"We decided we wanted to do some type of volunteer work as a family," Jody Winograd said. "There was an ad about the Care Teams, so we decided to look into it. When I'd come home for break, we'd continue with it."

Reaching out in such ways brought new meaning to coming home for the holidays. "It definitely put your life in perspective. It made being here more meaningful. It wasn't all about yourself."

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Distributed by The Associated Press