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Here are two articles I recently wrote as tools for work in Community Partnerships. The first is a synthesis of what CPFOA grantees told me about the "table" at which their Partnerships convene called "Bringing the Community Partnership to Life: Convening and Catalyzing the Partnership Table."
The second article is a take off on the Edward R. Murrow series on "What I Believe"; and this article is titled "Why Work in Community Partnership? What I Believe." Phyllis Bailey, of the CPFOA National Program Office.
"For an event here at the national office, I recently prepared a three foot by 4 foot poster about CPFOA which gives a very brief overview of our national initiative. Feel free to download it to provide the nation-wide context for your own community's Partnership work. It is extremely abbreviated due to the format parameters, but gives the basics about what we have all been trying to accomplish." - P. Bailey
Download the poster in PDF.
To read a new story we have just posted (in our website's Real Life Impact section) about the great work of the Ann Arbor Aging Well Partnership and how they used both art and hard data to focus attention on issues of their aging population, click here.
This month's issue of the National League of Cities publication Our Nation's Cities has a great article on Community Partnerships for Older Adults written by Asha Chandra. Read the full article.
Fremont Partnership Wins Award!
We just received word that the Pathways to Positive Aging Partnership of Fremont, California is the proud recipient of the American Society on Aging’s NOMA Award for Excellence in Multicultural Aging for its Community Ambassador Program for Seniors! Karen and Asha will be at the ASA conference in Chicago in March to receive the award. Congratulations to the Fremont Partnership for a job well done! More information can be found on their CAPS website: http://www.capseniors.org/. -
October, 2009 - Community Partnerships for Older Adults Annual Meeting and National Summit
Click here to see the entire video of the Summit panel hosted by the CPFOA National Program Office and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with the following participants:
- Ed Howard, Executive VP of the Alliance for Health Care Reform
- Elise Bolda, Co-director of the CPFOA National Program Office
- Jane Lowe, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Virginia State Senator Edd Houck
- Jean Kane, Core Leadership Member of Aging Together Partnership, Culpeper, VA
- Anne Hinton, Executive Director of the San Francisco Department of Aging and Disabilities and the San Francisco Partnership for Long Term Care
- Jane Bavineau, Executive Director of the Care for Elders Partnership , Houston,Texas.
- Arlene Kershaw, Project Director, Seniors Count Partnership, Manchester, New Hampshire
- Connie Hodges of the United Way of NE Florida and member of the Life Act2 Partnership of Jacksonville, Florida
- John Wren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Administration on Aging
- Jim Durkan, CEO of the Community Memorial Foundation and Core Leadership Member of the Aging Well Partnership, LaGrange, Illinois.
View the documents from the Summit:
New San Francisco Strategy for Excellence in Dementia Care Wins Award
Three exceptional programs from California, New York and Arizona are this year’s recipients of the Rosalinde Gilbert Innovations in Alzheimer’s Disease Caregiving Legacy Awards. The awards include $20,000 to each program and recognition at the national 2010 ASA conference.
The award winner in San Francisco is the Department of Aging and Adult Services, for its leadership in facilitating the Mayors's 37-member Long Term Care Coordinating Council (whose policy initiative resulted in this Strategic Planning process). The Long Term Care Coordinating Council grew out of the original CPFOA San Francisco Partnership for Community Based Care & Support.
An innovative 10-year Strategy with recommendations for dementia care excellence for policymakers, caregivers, care-receivers, service providers and the public was the accomplishment of the San Francisco Alzheimer’s/Dementia Expert Panel. Formed in November 2008, the panel was appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom at the urging of the Long Term Care Coordinating Council. The far reaching strategy was based on a scan of existing dementia services & resources; a national & international literature review to capture best practices and emerging research; assessment of the need for services projected over the next 11 years; economic analysis of funding resources and projected costs; and interviews with caregivers, providers,policymakers and people in government. At a 'kick-off' Summit,the Mayor addressed the 300 person audience about the importance of creating a Strategic Action Plan for excellent dementia care.
The goal of the San Francisco Strategy for Excellence in Dementia Care is to avert the growing crisis in Long-Term Dementia Care and its many potential negative impacts by engaging the entire community in developing and implementing the necessary infrastructure and resources.
The report summary is at http://www.sfdaas.org/1051.htm
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The recently published issue of "Generations", the journal of the American Society on Aging (Vol.33, number 2) is focused on "Creating Aging-Friendly Communities", and includes an abbreviated overview article about the Community Partnerships for Older Adults Program (p. 79) and articles about the work of the Aging Atlanta Partnership (p. 76) and the Pathways to Positive Aging Partnership of Fremont, California. (p.82) Click here for the overview article, providing a brief synopsis of the CPFOA model and some of its impact so far.
- At the annual meeting, in addition to the overview article listed above - we distributed a few other articles of interest as resources to participants. Two articles addressed the concept of "Conscious Capitalism" or the adoption by a business of a higher purpose that transcends profits, yet often leads to a company "doing well while doing good." These articles, which complemented our session on entrepreneurial thinking, were "Doing Business in the Age of Conscious Capitalism" by Dr. Rajendra, Sisodia; and "Conscious Capitalism - Creating a New Paradigm for Business" by John Mackey, Founder and CEO of the Whole Foods Market.
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The Pathways to Positive Aging Partnership of Fremont California worked with a reporter for 18 months on an article that was recently published in the New York Times. The front page coverage was great, and while it profiled the realities faced by immigrant seniors, it did not portray all the solutions that the Partnership and community have worked so hard to put in place. A follow on letter to the editor from 2 local academicians attempted to get that story out with the words "...we felt that the article.....told only the setting sun half of the story. ....(they gave some illustrations of the Partnership's work and then went on).....By glossing over these achievements, the article missed an opportunity to offer Fremont as an example to communities who share its problems, but have not yet implemented solutions." With any luck, perhaps there will be a follow up article about some of their creative solutions! Read the full story.
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Waynesville Partnership Receives National Grant
The Haywood Community Connections Partnership of Waynesville, NC just received a “Multi-Generational & Civic
Engagement Grant” from the National Council on Aging, the Corporation for National & Community Service, and the Administration on Aging; one of just four awarded nationally. The award of $30,000 for each of the next two years is being given in recognition of their exceptional volunteer engagement program, the Senior Leadership Program and Senior Resource Teams. When new members graduate from the leadership program, they join a resource team in their community to work on issues that matter locally. “These
teams are doing remarkable things,” says Victoria Young, Director of the Partnership. “We are so proud of them and what they are doing. We don’t tell these teams what to do. We equip and empower them to be leaders in their community – they take it from there.” “The
grant makers told us their goal is to take a very good program and raise it
to the level of exceptional through the funds and technical assistance offered
in the grant.”
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Take a look at this Video of the Intergenerational Songwriting Program of the Culpeper Partnership!
The Aging Together Partnership in Culpeper, VA has offered their 5 county teams as well as regional workgroups the opportunity to apply for “Incentive Grants”. In each county, the grant can be for up to $2,000, for something proposed by the local team, with a 10% match required. Core Leadership evaluates and approves each proposal based on fit to the local area, team buy-in, and a plan for sustainability. One team started an Inter-generational Song Writing Program, through which older adults visited schools and spoke about their lives, especially some of the challenges they faced during the segregation of the "Jim Crow" era. The attached video is of a song some of the children wrote about one senior's story, which they then preformed for their older friend. Watch the video.
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The Connecting Caring Communities Partnership of Milwaukee just created a terrific communications tool in the form of a poster titled: "Connecting Caring Communities: Community-Based Partnership Development to Support Aging-in-Place". It gives a great rationale for the work of Partnership, some methods, results and next steps. Click here to see the poster (MS Powerpoint).
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The Senior's Count Partnership has just held a very successful Annual
Symposium, and Share & Learn session with their new Partnerships in
Nashua and Portsmouth. They have also completed a "Policy Initiative
Final Report," outlining a policy impact strategy for the next 3
years. Click here for their Powerpoint
presentation from the Symposium
about their new Policy Initiative. Go to their website at www.seniorscountnh.org for their recent reports and publications.
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For new stories on our website about our grantees' work and the
power of Partnership, click on the headline below:
- March 25, 2009:
News on 4 CPFOA communities' current work
presented at the Joint ASA/NCOA Aging
Conference. Download
the presentation (PDF)
- 1,000 Elders Join Senior Tsunami March on San Francisco City
Hall
YouTube video of the Senior Tsunami march by 1,000 older residents
on San Francisco City Hall. Marie Jobling, a CPFOA Partner who helped organize
the event, is captured exhorting the crowd to protest against the severe
planned cuts to the services they need to stay safely in the city where they
have invested their lives. Twenty percent of the city's population are members
of the "Silver Tsunami" washing over the region. In a related
move, the Board of Supervisors voted to adopt a pilot of the Economic Security
Initiative, which re-defines the real cost of living with economic security
in the San Francisco area, as opposed to the federal definition of poverty,
which is approximately $10,000 annually
Watch
the documentary on YouTube.
- Maui Partnership has a new name and exciting future! See
news from the Aging with Aloha Annual meeting.
- Pathways
to Positive Aging partnership is excited to share their
work in support of the Community Ambassador for Seniors program
in Fremont, CA, and the launch of the new website http://www.capseniors.org
- National Coalition Launched to Address Eldercare Workforce Shortage -
The Eldercare
Workforce Alliance has been established to address the critical shortage
of healthcare providers and caregivers to meet the needs of older adults.
Funded in part by Atlantic Philanthropies and John A Hartford Foundation,
the Eldercare Workforce Alliance is a coalition of twenty-five national
organizations representing the interests of older adults and the eldercare
workforce. Read
More about the announcement visit.
- Evercare
Study of Hispanic Family Caregiving in
PDF issued by National Alliance of Caregivers.
- AARP Virginia Recognizes Aging Together Partnership With
Community Partner of the Year Award
(from a press release AARP sent out in Virginia on November 20,
2008)
The
Aging Together Partnership received the Community
Partner of the Year award from AARP Virginia for its outstanding
contributions to the work of AARP by collaborating with AARP volunteers
and staff to benefit members of the community.
Their projects “enhanced the quality of life for members in the Rappahannock-Rapidan
region as well as increased AARP’s presence in the community,” noted
the Aging Together nomination. The presentation was made at the
annual AARP Virginia Volunteer Recognition Banquet in Charlottesville on
November 19, 2008. More than one million Virginians are AARP members.
Accepting the award for the Aging Together Partnership was Christiane
Miller, Project Manager. “Receiving this award from AARP has special
meaning for us because Aging Together shares the same values as AARP – bringing
the voices of seniors to the community and working through collaboration,
at the local and regional level.”
Aging Together, a broad consortium of 100 organizations
and individuals, unites five counties of the Rappahannock-Rapidan
region (Culpeper, Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock). This
collaborative effort helps these localities prepare for unprecedented
growth in elder populations and to assure that local residents have
the services and supports they need as they age. Members include
older persons and their families, caregivers, community hospitals,
service providers, schools, local government, representatives of
the faith community and other concerned citizens.
New 2009 Survey by Metlife on Nursing Home, Assisted Living, Adult Day Services and Home Care Costs
For your information – a new survey has just been published by the MetLife Mature Market Institute about costs for a variety of long term and supportive care options. It found that private room nursing home rates rose 3.3% to $219 per day or $79,935 per year, while assisted living also rose 3.3% on average to $3,131 per month. Home health care aides now cost an average of $21 per hour; adult day services run $67 per day. The report includes average costs for each state, as well as for several individual cities, and includes other long-term care facts about provider training and available services. View the full document.
THE PROMISE OF CARE COORDINATION: Models that Decrease Hospitalizations
and Improve Outcomes for Medicare Beneficiaries with Chronic Illnesses,
A Report Commissioned by the National Coalition on Care Coordination (N3C)
By Randall Brown, Ph.D., Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. describes models
of care that decrease hospitalizations and improve outcomes for Medicare
beneficiaries with chronic illnesses. Read
the full report (PDF).
California’s Emergency Preparedness Efforts for Culturally
Diverse Communities: Status, Challenges and Directions for the Future, reports
on the systematic statewide assessment of emergency preparedness programs
and initiatives for racially and ethnically diverse communities. While
this report focuses on the state of California, it provides a framework
that allows for similar assessments to be conducted at national, state,
and local levels. The report was prepared by the Center for Health Equality
at the Drexel University School of Public Health, with joint support from
The California Endowment and the HHS Office of Minority Health. Read
the full report.
The National Health Policy Forum has released an introductory topic brief The
Basics Long-Term Care: Consumers, Services and Financing in
PDF
New research on issues of workforce competencies for working with
older adults. Health care professionals who have the knowledge
and skills to manage the complex needs of older adults are an important
but scarce resource. Two recent Commonwealth Fund-supported studies highlight
issues surrounding the workforce caring for older adults. A
study in the September 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society identified significant overlap in the geriatric competencies
specified in training and certification documents in five disciplines—dentistry,
medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work. The authors, led by Mathy
Mezey, Ed.D., R.N., professor and director of The Hartford Institute for
Geriatric Nursing at New York University College of Nursing, concluded
that these commonalities could form the basis of interdisciplinary training
of health care professionals specializing in geriatrics. Another
study, published in the Journal of Gerontological Nursing in
March 2008, found that certified nursing assistants who feel empowered
tend to perform their duties better, have higher morale and job satisfaction,
and are less likely to consider leaving their jobs.
Emergency Preparedness: Get Ready: Set Your Clocks,
Check Your Stocks campaign of the American Public Health Association offers
free disaster preparedness tips for households, online at www.getreadyforflu.org/clocksstocks. Materials
include a list of what should be in an emergency stockpile, information on
rotating stored food and water and games for kids. For the first time, bilingual
materials are available as well, with both a stockpiling information fact sheet
and a supply checklist in Spanish.
New Study: "Re-hospitalizations Among Patients
in the Medicare Fee-for-Service Program"
For those of you working on Hospital to Home programs, here is some new research
in case you did not see this on the Commonwealth Fund's website. Basically
it is a study of re-hospitalizations within several time frames among Medicare
patients; that also examines medical, but not social causes. Click
here for the full-text article.
Here is a synopsis: A study of Medicare fee-for-service claims data for nearly
12 million Medicare beneficiaries discharged from a hospital in 2003 and 2004
found that one of five patients was readmitted within 30 days, and half of
nonsurgical patients were rehospitalized without having seen an outpatient
doctor in follow-up. The estimated cost of unplanned hospital readmissions
in 2004 accounted for $17.4 billion of the $102.6 billion total hospital payments
made by Medicare that same year. To address the problem, the researchers recommend
intervention at the time of discharge, reliable and prompt follow-up care by
primary care physicians, and aggressive management of chronic illnesses.
The
suggestions for addressing the problem are less than conclusive and I think
some of you as grantees could write about this with significant depth.
For
your information, Phyllis Bailey, 4-13-2009
Medicaid and Long Term Care: New York Compared with 18
Other States released
by the Rockefeller Institute of Government Feb. 2009. Download
the full report (36 pages pdf)
Improving Transitional Care as older adults move from the hospital to the
community is subject of a report on work that grows from the work of the San
Francisco Partnership for Home and Community-based Care and Support. Download Transitional
Care Blueprint for Change: Recommendations to Improve Transitional Care Services
from Hospitals in San Francisco in PDF.
A Balancing Act: State Long-Term Care Reform, AARP’s
newly released report is chock full of information on state efforts in long-term
care. Read
the report (PDF)
How Can We Improve Long-term Care Financing? by Howard Gleckman from the The
Center for Retirement Research at Boston College looks at flaws in our current
long-term care systems and reviews the advantages of other potential approaches
including public-private financing. Download
the full report (PDF)
2007 Profile of Older Americans has been released
by the US Administration on Aging. Download
the full report (17 pages, PDF).
National
Commission for Quality Long-Term Care (NCQLTC.org) issues report. (PDF)
NCQLTC, a non-partisan group chaired by Bob Kerry,
former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, and Newt Gingrich, former Speaker
of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, has released national
survey results on the need for system improvements and final report and
recommendations for change “From Isolation to Integration: Recommendations
to Improve Quality in Long-Term” December 3, 2007.
The Kaiser Family Foundation resources on nursing home
quality.
In addition to a joint briefing on nursing home quality since the passage
of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA 87), the Kaiser Family
Foundation has released new opinion poll results, reports and updated fact
sheets on Medicaid and long-term care services.
Overview of Community Planning Strategies
Hear the Community Partnerships for Older Adults program and community
partnership experience with community-wide strategic planning presented
by Elise Bolda as part of the on-line Creating Aging-Friendly Communities
conference. View the presentation.
Which is having a greater impact on Medicare - rising health care costs
or growing older adult population? Read
the NY
Times editorial on the need for comparative research.
Hear
or read the views of those with early onset dementias - NPR broadcast
Sufferers of Early Onset Alzheimer's Describe Life with
the Disease,
by Susan Dentzer (US Public Broadcasting Corporation. Online
Newshour.
Jan. 10, 2008). In addition to the print transcript, the story is
available in MicroMedia Flash streaming video, and RealPlayer & .mp3
audio formats, running time, 11 minutes, 38 seconds.
NIH Announces Funding Opportunities to build partnerships between Academic Research Centers and Community-Based Organizations
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced the availability of $30 million provided by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to support the development of partnerships between academic research centers and community-based organizations. This funding opportunity, developed in collaboration with the Administration on Aging (AoA), supports the development of infrastructure and staff for productive and sustainable academic-community research partnerships. The goal is to accelerate the pace, productivity, dissemination, and implementation of research translation in community-based settings by strengthening and transforming relationships between academic centers and community organizations. Academic research centers must take the lead in applying for these grant funds, but they are required to have a full collaboration with community-based organization(s). This grant announcement gives special attention to projects that involve partnerships with HHS funded networks, including the AoA supported Aging Services Network. NIH anticipates awarding 30 or more grants with a funding maximum of $1 million per applicant. Letters of intent are due November 12, 2009 and the application due date is December 11, 2009. View a copy of the grant announcement.
Kaiser Family Foundation announces new grant for editorial focus
on long term care. Read
the full press release.
Bank of America Charitable Foundation
The Bank of America Charitable Foundation is announcing their sixth
year, $20 Million Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. The deadline
for applications is February 20 for Student Leaders and June 30 for Neighborhood
Builders and Local Heroes. Applicants in the 45 participating
communities are encouraged to submit as early as possible. Press
release and application information are on Bank of America Web site.
Target Store Grant Opportunities
Target Stores are accepting applications for
its local store grants program supporting initiatives that bring arts
into schools, promote a love of reading and the prevention of family
violence. (There might be connections to intergenerational, or elder
abuse programs.) Average grants range from $1,000 to $3,000. Target
also offers each store limited funds for Target Gift card donations for
other unique opportunities outside the program’s focus areas. For
more information, go to www.target.com
Current Awareness in Aging Research (CAAR) is a weekly
email report produced by
the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison that helps researchers keep up to date with the latest
developments in the field. Click
here for more information, including an archive of back issues and subscription
information.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) welcomes subscribers to
their Aging Initiative List serv. Click
here to join the "Aging_Initiative" Listserver!
HAP Launches New Long-Term Care Center
The Health Assistance Partnership (HAP) Long-Term Care Center contains
four fact sheets for beneficiaries and caregivers who are interested
in learning more about long-term care: What Is Long-Term Care?, How
Do You Pay for Long-Term Care?, What Is Long-Term Care Insurance?,
and What Is the Long-Term Care Partnership Program? http://www.hapnetwork.org/long-term-care/
Ageism is part of attitudes of people in many countries and cultures. This issue
brief on ageism prepared
by the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse offers definitions,
concrete suggestions for how to move forward and links for further reading.
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