Panel Calls for More Connected, Culturally Responsive Support Systems for Older Adults

On Monday, Sept. 21 at Town Hall Seattle, Sound Generations hosted a panel discussion, the first in a series around crucial issues impacting older adults. The event brought together service providers, clinicians, advocates and community members to examine why older adults experiencing behavioral or mental health concerns, cognitive decline, and isolation struggle to get the help they need.

The idea for the panel discussion grew from the work of Sound Generations’ Geriatric Regional Assessment Team (GRAT), which provides referral-based in-home assessments and connections to services. GRAT’s clinical manager and panel moderator, Jams Stuivenga, framed the discussion as a public forum for identifying both barriers to services and practical solutions. Four expert panelists joined Stuivenga:

• Tracy Adair, policy and community engagement lead, King County Older Adults and Healthy Aging
• Someireh Amirfaiz, founder and executive director, New Americans Alliance for Policy and Research
• Hazel Boado, director of aging and adult services, Asian Counseling and Referral Service
• Mason Lowe, deputy director, Pike Market Senior Center and Food Bank

Each panelist described their unique path into aging services, then shared similar experiences of the gaps between what older adults need and what existing systems can provide.

Lowe offered a stark example. The Pike Market Senior Center has deep experience serving low-income and unhoused people, yet staff increasingly encounter older adults with memory loss and serious cognitive challenges they cannot readily connect to care. Many services require complex paperwork to make appointments, stable housing, or a home address—requirements most of his clients do not meet. Too often, he said, help arrives only after a crisis becomes severe enough to involve police. His recent op-ed for the Seattle Times, Seniors with dementia deserve help, not handcuffs, highlights this paradigm.

Boado described a web of compounding barriers to the right supports: chronic health conditions, limited mobility, transportation and nutrition issues, financial strain, social isolation and limited English proficiency. In some communities, including her Filipino community, mental health concerns may be viewed as weakness and cause for shame. She argued that culturally and linguistically responsive care must be embedded throughout professional education and workforce practice, not treated as a one-time training topic. She also noted that “one-size-fits-all” care plans and fragmented health and social services were already barriers well before the drastic impacts of HR1 are being fully felt.

Amirfaiz challenged the assumption that behavioral health is always the right “door.” For refugees and immigrants, grief, displacement, trauma, language differences, and loss of social identity can be mistaken for individual pathology. She recounted how a culturally mismatched assessment question (how many people ride a bicycle?) failed to reflect an Afghan elder’s lived experience in his home country, illustrating that translation alone does not make an assessment tool appropriate. Her broader point was that systems must acknowledge the whole person across a lifetime, including their cultural origins, poverty, trauma, purpose, and belonging, rather than forcing everyone through a uniform model of wellness.

Adair connected these examples to institutional silos between aging and behavioral health services and urged participants to name ageism in this country the root cause. As people live longer, she said, social systems have not kept pace. From her decades-long experience, she has observed one promising response: strengthen and invest in trusted places where older adults already gather. Senior centers, culturally specific organizations, and neighborhood “village” networks can reduce isolation, bring cognitive changes to the forefront, and help people navigate services.

Ending on a note of how the panelists envision success, they collectively defined it in very human terms: Older adults should be able to live meaningful lives, maintain as much independence as possible, stay connected to family and community, and receive the right care at the right time. Families need respite and support for caregiver stress. Providers need adequate funding, a culturally grounded workforce, well-trained frontline staff, and a coordinated continuum of care. Amirfaiz added that older adults must be active participants—not passive recipients—in forums, focus groups, advocacy, and policy decisions. Paid volunteer opportunities and other pathways to purpose could provide both income stability and hope.

Audience members then widened the conversation with concerns about mis-prescribed medications leading to cognitive changes, accessible transportation, supported decision-making, and the tension between safety and autonomy. Panelists urged the audience to advocate for systems that tolerate reasonable risk rather than removing activities that give elders joy and identity. The evening closed on an affirming note: Aging is not defined by decline, rather by a lifelong process of social, intellectual, and personal growth. The collective challenge is to build systems that see older adults through a holistic lens, preserve agency, and respond to concerning behavioral changes before they turn into crises.

On Feb. 22, 2027, Sound Generations will host the next panel discussion event, “Older Adults on the Margins,” tackling the myriad challenges facing older adults navigating homelessness and/or re-entry after incarceration.

Contributor Cat Munsen is the Community Engagement & Advocacy Coordinator at Sound Generations and had the privilege of organizing this important panel discussion event at Town Hall. She comes to aging services with a deep background in coalition-building and campaigns, having served as Seattle City Councilmember Dionne Foster’s Field Director in 2025. She is passionate about making systemic change for marginalized communities through policy and advocacy.