Peer Counselors Aid Seniors By Simply Listening, Talking : Social service: The free, non-sectarian effort trains volunteers to counsel and comfort other older people.

Eighty-five-year-old Margaret Sunday hasn’t made many friends since moving to Ventura 12 years ago.

“I had no relatives here, and I was ashamed of my English,” the Hungarian native said.

Sunday reached a low point early last year after one of her few friends died and she injured her shoulder in a fall.

“I was without work. I was without interest. I felt I was a lost one,” she said.

Then, Sascha Kaufmann visited.

“I was flabbergasted. We spoke like we’d known each other 100 years,” Sunday said.

Kaufmann, a member of the Senior Peer Counseling Program, was referred by a nurse who was treating Sunday’s shoulder.

Run by Jewish Family Services of Ventura County, the non-sectarian program trains volunteer senior citizens to counsel and comfort other seniors, Margie Greenwald, the agency’s executive director, said.

Because they are not licensed, the counselors’ main job is listening and talking. They often refer their clients to professionals, such as lawyers, physicians and psychiatrists, Greenwald said. Begun more than five years ago, the free program has about 10 counselors and 19 clients.

Each counselor typically has two clients and visits them once a week. The counselors also meet once a week with Greenwald for support and training. At these training sessions, they regularly hear talks by mental-health professionals and others involved with the elderly.

“I think it works because people are very accepting of those who are their peers,” said Pickens Hall, a St. John’s Hospice counselor who has helped train the volunteers.

“I think anyone who is really sensitive to someone else’s needs and their hurts, and feels secure in themselves, can counsel someone else.”

Margaret Sunday is Catholic. Kaufmann is Jewish and 20 years younger than her client, but they share a European background.

Sunday was imprisoned by both the Soviet Union and Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, she said. She ran an export-import business and her frequent travel and friendliness with foreigners led to suspicions of espionage, she said.

Kaufmann, the daughter of Holocaust victims, fled Nazi Germany at age 13.

“I can understand where she’s coming from, literally,” Kaufmann said.

Each lost her husband. The death of Sunday’s husband 20 years ago precipitated her move from Alaska, where they had been living since 1965. Kaufmann’s husband died 3 1/2 years ago. Her grief led her to the peer-counseling program.

“Margaret was despondent, and she was very oriented towards death and dying,” Kaufmann said. “I said, ‘Let’s see if we can’t get you oriented more towards life and living.’ ”

“She’s just like a musician,” Sunday said of Kaufmann. “She knows what to play. Every Wednesday, I am sitting here,” she said, motioning toward her couch, “waiting till Sascha comes.”

For more information about the senior peer-counseling program, call 659-5144.