‘Grandparents’ Lend Their Ears on Friendship Benches

Older adults are filling a mental health care gap in Washington, D.C.

Christina Ianzito,

AARP

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Published August 27, 2025

A photo shows grandparent Angela Jasper (on the left) offering a sympathetic ear (with no judgment) to visitor Robin Baxter on a Friendship Bench on the roof of the Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center in Washington, D.C.

Friendship Bench DC in action: Grandparent Angela Jasper, left, offers a sympathetic ear (with no judgment) to visitor Robin Baxter on a Friendship Bench on the roof of the Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center in Washington.

Greg Kahn

Angela Jasper, 75, embraces Robin Baxter, 63, one recent morning at the Washington, D.C., senior center where they meet a few times a month. “Good to see you,” says Jasper, a retired math and special education teacher in the city’s public school system, who has a voice soothing enough to lower anyone’s blood pressure.

“Good to see you, Miss Angela,” says Baxter, who sports a black shirt studded with the words “Faith. Sending all issues to Heaven" in sequins.

Jasper is Baxter’s “grandparent.” That’s her title as a volunteer with Friendship Bench DC, a program launched last summer as a pilot project by HelpAge USA, a Washington-based nonprofit devoted to empowering older adults in the U.S. and worldwide, and has begun gathering steam in the past few months.

Jasper is among a group of 10 older Washingtonians who serve as grandparents on the city’s Friendship Benches, which are located both inside and outdoors at host sites — social service organizations, schools, recreation centers and houses of worship — around the city. There, the grandparents listen to people (called “visitors”) share their feelings and discuss their problems, usually for about 45 minutes to an hour per session.

A photo shows the indoor Friendship Bench at the senior center in Washington, D.C., where Angela Jasper and Robin Baxter often meet.

The indoor Friendship Bench at the senior center where Jasper and Baxter often meet

Greg Kahn

The grandparents aren’t therapists. They’re more like nonjudgmental, compassionate friends who’ll listen patiently, keep your secrets and ask questions that will make you think and, maybe, lead you toward positive changes.

Friendship Bench DC is modeled on the original Friendship Bench program in Zimbabwe, launched almost 20 years ago by Dixon Chibanda, one of fewer than 20 psychiatrists in a country of about 17 million, to broaden access to mental health care. The organization, now partnered with the government, has trained 3,000 grandmothers across Zimbabwe in the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy (including empathetic listening techniques). As in D.C., the sessions are free.

Why grandmothers? “They have this amazing ability to convey empathy, a lot more than grandfathers, a lot more than young people,” Chibanda said in a recent phone interview with AARP. (You can read his new book, The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution, for more on the program’s remarkable story.)

Many other organizations and individuals around the U.S. are eager to begin their own Friendship Bench programs, says Cindy Cox-Roman, president and CEO of HelpAge USA, who hopes to see it take root in other communities. She says a recent webinar about the success of Friendship Bench DC drew attendees from across the U.S. Some similar efforts have sprung up more casually, inspired by Friendship Bench Zimbabwe but without its involvement, such as Arizona State University's All Ears Friendship Bench Program. There, older adult volunteers sit on benches, next to a sign saying, "I'm All Ears! Talk to Me About Anything,” encouraging passersby to stop and chat.

Coming soon: Friendship Bench NOLA, housed within the school of social work at Southern University at New Orleans and readying for a soft launch in New Orleans in September. But it uses a different model than Zimbabwe’s and DC’s: The “grandparent” role is filled by “supporters” — community members of various ages “who are already doing healing work,” says Carol Bebelle, 75, who’s worked in community health for decades in the city and helped initiate the program with the Zimbabwe effort in mind. The first group of NOLA’s supporters, also trained by Friendship Bench in Zimbabwe, includes mental health counselors, a massage therapist and a nurse (the youngest is in her late 20s) who will begin meeting with people (“neighbors,” they’re called) in the Lower Ninth Ward next month.

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But Cox-Roman is convinced that having older people in the role is the key — “the secret sauce, or the magic,” as she puts it — to Friendship Bench DC’s success. “It’s about the iconic role of grandparents being that safe space, the person you could always turn to who would support you,” she says.

‘They’re loving. They care’

The seed for Friendship Bench DC was planted during the pandemic, when HelpAge USA staff members worked with older African American volunteers who’d united to encourage people in their community to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19. They called themselves DC Grandparents Against COVID-19.

After the pandemic subsided, some participants, eager to continue helping their peers, decided to tackle the lack of mental health services in some areas of the city. Cox-Roman, who was already aware of and impressed with Friendship Bench Zimbabwe, and HelpAge USA staff worked with the grandparents to bring the model to Washington. That included arranging for a team from Friendship Bench Zimbabwe to lead the grandparents-to-be in a 40-hour training program over 10 weeks on Zoom. They were taught active listening (where the listener is immersed in the present moment and fully absorbing what another person is saying) and “expressed empathy” (reacting in a way that helps someone feel respected, heard and understood).

A photo shows grandparent Theresa Kelly, a retired elementary school teacher, sitting on a bench.

Grandparent Theresa Kelly, a retired elementary school teacher, says visitors "are not used to people listening to them."

Greg Kahn

They also learned not to dole out advice on the bench, notes grandparent Theresa Kelly, 76, a retired elementary school teacher. Instead, she says, she’ll ask visitors, “‘How do you think you can solve this? What do you think you can do to feel better about this? Why do you think this is happening?’ It’s surprising how much they can solve their own issues.”

Grandparents were trained to listen without judgment — which isn’t so hard considering that, at their ages, they’ve all been there, done that, says grandparent Barbara Allen, 81, another former teacher. “Being grandparents, we have probably done everything in the world. You know what I’m saying? Especially since [we] were mostly reared in the ’60s.”

Before a Friendship Bench DC session is scheduled, visitors are screened to determine whether they need professional mental health care. If they do, Gigi El-Bayoumi, M.D., the executive director of the Rodman Institute at the Georgetown School of Medicine, who works as a consultant to the program, provides a referral, or they are connected with a community-based service provider. But the goal of the Friendship Bench is to reach people before they get to the point of crisis, El-Bayoumi notes. “That’s what’s brilliant about this.”

These women are special, she adds: “They’re loving; they care. And it’s obvious when you go, it’s like you’re in the hug of somebody who not only is not judging you but loves you.”

‘I really appreciate your ears’

Baxter, a widow with 12 grandchildren and one great-grandson, usually meets with Jasper in a serene little room at the Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center in Northwest Washington. The pair sits together on a wooden bench softened with pillows, one printed with the words “Your voice is valued here.”

Baxter says that while she has seen a traditional therapist in the past, ‘It just didn’t suit me. She was talking down to me… She wasn’t listening to me. Miss Angela listens to me.”

She tells Jasper about her concerns, including her unstable housing situation and family conflicts. Her eyes fill with tears when describing their interactions. “After 63 years, being able to express yourself… I never felt like I could talk and not be judged,” she says. “I tell her all the time, ‘I really appreciate your ears.’”

The grandparents are flourishing in their roles, as well. “They are just bursting with pride,” says Cox-Roman, who notes that a second group of 18 older adults is now training to become Friendship Bench grandparents.

A photo shows grandmother Barbara Allen (on the left) meeting with visitor Janice Hutton on a Friendship Bench at the charity Bread for the City in Washington, D.C.

Grandmother Barbara Allen, left, meets a few times a month with visitor Janice Hutton on a Friendship Bench at the charity Bread for the City in Washington. Hutton calls Allen "my buddy."

Greg Kahn

As Allen puts it, “[Being a grandparent] gives you a purpose, and your purpose is helping someone else make a plan, their own plan to enrich their lives.”

Kelly says the experience has been “a joy.” Being a grandparent has taught her how to listen. She explains, “You have to be really engaged. Like with my sister, we talk at the same time. We’re trying to get our points out. But I learned to wait, take a breath and listen to her, and listen to people I work with. Let them get it all out until they’re really finished.”

She points to one particular visitor who touched her heart: a 17-year-old high school student who came to her heavy with concern for his mother, who had cancer, while grieving the death of his beloved (real-life) grandmother.

“He just felt like he wasn’t doing enough for his family,” says Kelly. “I helped him realize that he couldn’t solve the world, but there were things he could do that would help him find joy. And I told him I could see such hope in him…. It was beautiful to see him change. The last time we met, he was looking forward to graduation.”

When they said goodbye, “he told me he loved me,” she says with a smile. “I told him I love him, too.”

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Christina Ianzito covers scams and fraud, and is the books editor for aarp.org and AARP The Magazine. Also a longtime travel writer and editor, she received a 2020 Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.