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The Blueprint for Aging Partnership

Address
		5361 McCauley Drive
		PO Box 995
		Ann Arbor, Michigan
		48106
Web site
		www.BlueprintforAging.org
Contact
		Jill Kind
		734.712.2032

In 2001, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided a catalyst for a core group of 15 organizations to form the Blueprint for Aging Partnership, in which more than 40 community agencies and 70 individuals have participated. Their objectives are to: bring greater visibility to the priorities, concerns and experiences of seniors; provide seniors with meaningful ways to affect decisions about community issues that ultimately impact their lives; develop improved technology to streamline service delivery; test innovative pilot programs in caregiver support, transportation and improved access to needed help; build a community that is prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of the county’s rapidly growing older adult population.

Successes:

The partnership has been recognized as a “single voiced initiative” by the Washtenaw County Collaborative and has been included as a member of the Coordinating Council. This is significant because the WCC establishes priorities and funding streams for the County’s human services.
Twelve seniors participated in a six week training series on advocacy skills presented by the partnership. The Senior Advocates of Washtenaw have increased membership to 120, and have organized seven sessions on long term care, policy development and other aging related issues.
The partnership started a transportation voucher program pilot which was expanded after receiving an enthusiastic response. Seniors can use the voucher on transportation provided by friends and family or by traditional providers. The program has now been written into the county-wide transportation plan and federal dollars have been appropriated for it.
A prototype of a shared database to promote electronic referrals has been developed and four agencies have been trained in its use.

Real Life Impact:

In the spring of 2007, budget cuts threatened to end funding for a highly successful Service Coordinator program which had been helping many low income seniors in public housing local services and live independently as long as possible. The Senior Advocates of Washtenaw (“Older Adults Speaking Out for Change”) led many local seniors in a letter-writing campaign to save funding for the program. The letters poured in. Not only was funding preserved, but the letter writers received correspondence from the legislators they contacted, including their U.S. Senator, acknowledging the importance of maintaining the funding for the future.

We encourage the reproduction of this material and ask that you credit Community Partnerships for Older Adults Community Partnerships for Older Adults is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation within the University of Southern Maine
© 2007 Community Partnerships for Older Adults

Strategic Planning - Strategic planning will help you create a bold vision for the future, strengthen new partnerships, forge creative and innovative linkages between stakeholders, and ultimately better address the needs of older adults in your community. A community-wide strategic planning process will benefit from the wisdom of a diverse array of participants and ensure greater likelihood of success.

Inclusion & Diversity - Including older adults and caregivers is crucial to growing and sustaining successful community partnerships. It is especially important to seek participation from traditionally excluded groups such as those defined by race and ethnicity, low income, lack of English language proficiency, and sexual orientation. While many factors can challenge a partnership’s efforts to embrace diversity and build productive relationships, receiving input from a broad array of community members helps to ensure equality in decision making and leads to long term care and supportive services that are more responsive to a community’s diverse needs.

Fiscal Strategies - Developing a fiscal strategy is an important and challenging part of improving the system of long term care and supportive services for older adults in your community. The array of funding options requires that community partnerships be strategic in their aims. This area of the Resource Center reviews relevant funding sources and provides resources to help you make the most of them.

Communications - Have you ever thought about how many times a day someone tries to influence you to think a certain way, to buy a certain product, to support a cause or to change your behavior? These days there are so many ways to reach you—from cell phones and Palm Pilots to instant messaging, cable TV and customized publications—that a reasonable reaction is to simply tune everything out. It’s a world of sound and fury.

Evaluation - While the success of a community partnership may seem self-evident, a systematic evaluation holds members to a higher standard, revealing more than what we see with the naked eye. This section offers an introduction to evaluation. It covers the basic principles of evaluation design and implementation, as well as some topics likely to be important for community partnerships working to improve long term care and supportive services.

Partnership Evolution - A partnership generally consists of multiple organizations and individuals working together under a common vision. Who will be in the partnership varies from community to community, yet the purpose is universal: to create a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship to sustain results that are not possible alone.