Appeal for Guardian Angels
from ELCA & LCMS Leaders

SUBJECT: LSF Guardianship Program.

Lutheran Services Florida (LSF) has had a guardianship program since 1982. We currently serve approximately 650 clients. Two-thirds of the clients are indigent; there are no funds available for the services provided by LSF. Without funding, we are unable to accept any new indigent clients. As a result, many of our state’s most vulnerable citizens will be left alone and unprotected from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

In our statewide Guardianship programs we provide the following services:

• Assessment
• 24 hour on-call availability
• Ensuring clients’ safe living conditions
• Protection against neglect, abuse, and exploitation
• Coordinating and monitoring medical and mental health services
• Managing clients’ income, benefits, insurance, assets, and financial affairs
• Providing support services
• Advocacy for clients’ rights

LSF utilizes a team of professional staff and volunteers (including lawyers who donate their services pro bono) who work hard to meet the varied needs of our clients. This team provides many services to clients including: placement in appropriate care facilities to ensure clean and safe living arrangements; scheduling appointments for medical, psychiatric and rehabilitative services; obtaining consent for medical treatment; applying for governmental benefits on behalf of clients; obtaining insurance and conducting appropriate follow-up services regarding benefits; financial management; scheduling visitations from friends; and advocacy.

Upon appointment as guardian, the team of staff and volunteers takes steps to ensure the client’s safety and well-being. This includes an immediate visit to evaluate the client for suitability of
placement, medical, psychiatric, and rehabilitative needs, as well as their nutritional status. The guardian then proceeds quickly to make arrangements to ensure the safety of each client, locate
assets and income, and apply to become the payee for recurring funds such as Social Security, VA benefits, and various pensions. Expenses for clients are kept, whenever possible, within the scope of the client’s income. This is intensive case management.

Guardianship law requires that guardianship services be entered into only if other, less restrictive, alternatives are unavailable. LSF Guardianship Staff work closely with local social services agencies to refer appropriate cases – the Department of Children and Families, Aging and Adult Services, Adult Protection Services, local hospitals, crisis intervention units, nursing facilities, and home health agencies.

Once LSF is appointed the legal guardian for an individual, they generally remain in our care until their death, since LSF often is the only support system they have.

LSF is the only agency in parts of the state, such as Pensacola and Sarasota, that provides services to incapacitated individuals at no charge. The agency fills a great need by providing services which are unduplicated. Without LSF, many indigent and low-income individuals in need of guardianship services would be left unprotected, since private, professional guardians rarely serve indigent and low-income individuals.

According to statistics reported by the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research (1999), Florida’s population will increase by a projected 19.6% to nearly 18 million people in 2010. Of that number, 19% will be over age sixty-five. An estimated 4% of the elderly population suffers from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The demographics clearly indicate that the needs of the older adult population are growing at an increasing rate almost on a daily basis. Currently, Sarasota County has the highest percentage of individuals aged 85 and older in the state and all expectations indicate that it will continue to have one of the largest, if not the largest, populations of elderly individuals over age 85. As a result, we expect that the LSF Sarasota Guardianship Program will be faced with increased demands for services from a rapidly growing population of elderly individuals.

All of the aforementioned statistics lead to the inescapable conclusion that as the population in Florida grows, there will also be a proportionate increase in the need for guardianship services.

It costs LSF $2,250 per indigent client per year to provide the above services. We have developed a program – “LSF Guardian Angels”- to encourage individual congregations to “adopt” an indigent client. Our goal is to sign up 50 congregations to adopt indigent Guardianship clients.

Our expectations for the congregations:

• Financial support of $2,250 annually
• Visit the client if possible
• Call the client on the phone occasionally
• Send birthday and Christmas cards (and gifts, if possible)

What the congregations can expect from LSF:

• Regular monthly letters indicating client status an progress
• A recognition plaque that could be displayed in the church
• Recognition in Cross-Currents and Lutheran Life

We would like you to make this program available to your church members. Providing a full year’s service to and indigent client

Costs $43.27 per week
or $6.18 per day

Fifty families donating $45.00 each is what is needed to provide a full year of service.

Can we count on your help?

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Gerhard C. Michael, Jr.    Rev. Edward Benoway      James A. Wells
President – LCMS                       Bishop – ELCA                President, CEO - LSF
 

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