GUARDIANSHIP SERVICES INC

GSI provides this less-restrictive alternative to guardianship for clients who, per medical evidence provided by a physician, are not able to manage their finances in their own best interests. Program services are voluntary and can prevent the need for court-ordered guardianship. These include:
• Case management and coaching that helps clients make prudent decisions regarding how their money is spent, prioritizing basic needs like rent and food.
• Multilingual money management education in the basics of financial literacy and fraud awareness
• Bill Payer services that help clients manage their own income
• Representative Payee support for clients receiving Social Security or Veterans Administration benefits

Prevention is our best hope of ending the epidemic of fraud and financial exploitation of at-risk adults. In 2016, GSI launched the Financial Exploitation Prevention Center (FEPC) in collaboration with the Tarrant County District Attorney, Adult Protective Services, and allied local agencies to protect vulnerable adults and raise public awareness of the risk of financial exploitation.

The center coordinates services of a network of agencies dedicated to the prevention and prosecution of fraud or financial exploitation of aging adults and those with disabilities in Tarrant County. FEPC collaborating agencies:
• Raise awareness of fraud and financial exploitation in Tarrant County
• Educate the public in preventing, identifying, and reporting suspected fraud or financial exploitation
• Help victims of fraud or exploitation recover
• Track community benefits of a decline in financial exploitation

Twenty senior volunteers will help GSI fight fraud and financial exploitation of older Tarrant County residents as part of an AmeriCorps Seniors Demonstration Project.

The project allows GSI to expand programs that prevent fraud and financial exploitation of aging adults in Tarrant County by deploying AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers age 55 and older as peer fraud prevention and financial literacy coaches, mobilizing the skills and experience of seniors to protect their neighbors from the crime of the 21st century: fraud.

The Lifeline Friendly Visitor program combats the silent epidemic of loneliness and social isolation among seniors with the best medicine: human contact.

Volunteers, many of them seniors themselves, visit or contact their homebound and isolated peers at least twice monthly and are supported by a GSI Community Navigator, a member of GSI’s case services team, who helps isolated adults access community services and build their social networks.

More than a third of Tarrant County seniors -- 47,600 households -- struggled to pay their bills before inflation rose to 40-year highs. Today low-income seniors need help more than ever. Thanks to cornerstone funding from the Amon G. Carter Foundation, GSI can help them fight inflation with the E3 (Educate Engage Enroll) program, a three-year initiative to increase access to and enrollment in Medicare Saving Programs.

By helping seniors better afford their health care, Medicare Savings Programs free limited income to help pay other rising costs of living like grocery bills.