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PEARLS—Program to Encourage Active Rewarding Lives

The Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives (PEARLS) is a community-integrated program to treat older adults with disabilities who also have minor depression. PEARLS is available to ADS funded case management clients in King County.

The PEARLS program is an outgrowth of a 5 year research project conducted in collaboration with the University of Washington's Health Promotion Research Center (HPRC). The research study showed PEARLS home-based depression management counseling significantly reduced depression symptoms and improved health status in chronically medically ill older adults with minor depression.

For our general PEARLS flyer, click on the image above. Other resources are listed below.

PEARLS Support for Veterans

Aging and Disability Services offers free PEARLS counseling to low-income veterans age 55+ who have minor depression. Spouses, widows, and domestic partners of veterans are also eligible for depression counseling services.

PEARLS counseling supplements—without competing—with other services for veterans.

For our veterans flyer, click here. For our veterans brochure, click on the image at right.

An article about PEARLS for Veterans—"Program to Encourage Active Rewarding Lives Helps Kent Veteran Succeed at Problem-Solving"—appears in the November 2012 issue of AgeWise King County (also available in PDF).

This program received funding from the King County Veterans and Human Services Levy.

To view two brief videos about PEARLS support for veterans, click on the images below.

For more information, contact Paul Snow (206-615-0533).

Resources:

• Project Summary A brief summary of program design and results.
• Implementation of an Evidence-Based Depression Care Management Program (PEARLS): Perspectives From Staff and Former Clients Research article published in Preventing Chronic Disease, Centers for Disease Control, September 2012.
• "Community-Integrated Home-Based Depression Treatment in Older Adults" Research article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), April 2004.
• PEARLS Implementation Toolkit
  The how-to manual for implementing PEARLS in your agency.
• "PEARLS Gives Seniors with Mild Depression New Hope" One in a series of stories by the Centers for Disease Control on successful prevention research programs, January 2007.
• PEARLS website - managed by the Center for Healthcare Improvement for Addictions, Mental Illness, and Medically Vulnerable Populations (CHAMMP)
• PEARLS Training Video
  Testimonials about the effectiveness of PEARLS training for counselors and other professionals.
• VA Caregiver Support The Veterans Administration offers this website for caregivers of veterans of all ages, along with a toll-free support line: 1-855-260-3274.