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The Aging Well Partnership,
An Initiative of the Greater Lyons
Township

Address
		care of AgeOptions
		1048 Lake Street
		Suite 300
		Oak Park, Illinois
		60301-1102
Web site
		www.agingwellpartnership.org
Contact
		Robert Mapes
		708-383-0258

Aging Well is a Partnership whose scope includes 20 communities in the greater Lyons Township, Illinois area. The partnership is comprised of hundreds of older adults and over 130 community-based organizations working together to create an environment in which people can age well. The partnership’s vision: “Aging Well is committed to ensuring that older adults are supported in their homes and communities. Seniors and their families should get the help they want and need so that they are able to maintain their independence in the community for as long as possible.”

Successes:

Work force development efforts have shifted from a “focus on the education of providers regarding issues” to “a focus on quality through the introduction of a career ladder initiative and training.”
The partnership is exploring the possibility of an apprentice program for direct care workers. Combined with the career ladder initiative, they hope to create some interim steps to reward people who want to grow but remain in their direct care work.
Following numerous presentations on elder abuse to police officers, there has been a dramatic increase in reports of elder abuse by the police. The training is now expanding to include the fire department, emergency medical personnel and postal workers.

Real Life Impact:

“The greater Lyons Township has a number of transportation resources older adults could use, but they just do not know about them. Information has not been easy to find about where services go, how to access them, who is served or the cost. So the Transportation Workgroup of the Aging Well Partnership created a comprehensive Guide (PDF download) to transportation which is available on-line and in print, with information about what is available in each region, special taxi coupon/voucher programs, medical transportation options and how to use the public transit services. For the first time, very specific information is easily accessible about transportation for elders throughout the region, and partners collaborated to print 10,000 copies. Community action teams are helping to distribute the Guides throughout the greater Lyons Township region in places frequented by older residents. One volunteer recently picked up a copy at her beauty salon.”

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.