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Haywood Community Connections
Partnership

Address
		81 Elmwood Way
		Waynesville, North Carolina
		28786
Web site
		www.haywoodconnections.com
Contact
		Victoria Young
		828-452-2370 x127

The Haywood Community Connections governing council began developing a county-wide strategic plan for the Partnership in 2004. The mission of the Partnership is to work collaboratively to effect positive change that enriches the community and enhances the quality of life for all Haywood County citizens, especially those who are vulnerable or at risk older adults, their caregivers and adults with disabilities. The mission is critical in light of the fact that a 57% increase in the older adult population in the county is projected over the next 25 years. Members of the Partnership represent a cross section of churches, local businesses, home health organizations, long term care providers and nonprofit agencies.

Successes:

Created the “Good Neighbor Award” program to recognize community members making outstanding contributions to the lives of older adults in the spirit of “neighbor helping neighbor.” To date, five awards have been bestowed.
Established the “Drive a Friend” volunteer program in partnership with 16 churches. Every three months, one church takes a week of responsibility for providing transportation to elder citizens, which is coordinated through a central dispatcher. The program meets on-demand needs, which are often same-day requests for trips to doctors and stores which are hard to hard to reach in remote areas.
To address elder abuse, the partnership aired radio spots promoting awareness of signs of abuse and helped leverage three agency grants to combat it.
Due to the need for support services for caregivers to individuals affected by memory impairment, the Partnership collaborated on a special conference for caregivers, which included the distribution of a “kit of resources” to help caregivers find what they need and prevent burnout.

Real Life Impact:

Anita C. is a retired teacher who has been caregiver for her husband, Bill, for several years. Bill is a former coach who developed Parkinson’s and is no longer able to care for himself. Anita has cared for him around the clock for a long time. The Haywood Community Connections staff and several partners recently collaborated with the Alzheimer’s Association to present a region-wide conference entitled “The Many Faces of Dementia.” All caregivers were invited to attend, and a sitter service was provided to encourage attendance. Anita attended, and had many good things to say about the experience. Her only regret was that she had to pick and choose from the list of sessions. She wanted to attend all of them.

“Haywood Community Partnership is one of the best things
that has happened in Haywood County. The strong leadership of this
project has opened many doors to senior adults in the county, and
the networking among seniors to help other seniors is a real plus.”
– Robert Fulbright, President-Elect, North Carolina Senior Citizens Association

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.