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History
Washtenaw County has a long history of collaboration among agencies serving the elderly, strengthened by the funding resources of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF) and other local funders. The county's total population and aging population grew rapidly, outpacing the growth of the state of Michigan as a whole. The group most in need of long-term care services, those over age 85, grew by more than 36 percent. But other social issues such as the concerns of children, the homeless, and the uninsured have overshadowed those needs. Michigan was late in developing the Medicaid waiver program and economic problems reduced this option to an insignificant resource in recent years. The rapid proliferation of for-profit assisted living and home care agencies expanded the number of services available to those with financial means but the lack of affordable options for long-term care and supportive services became a major issue of concern for non-profit agencies serving the elderly.
Early Initiative
An early initiative for systems change began in 1998 when six agencies serving the elderly joined forces to create an unmet needs fund which could quickly provide assistance to individuals to pay for medications, in-home care, utilities bills, and other emergency needs. The partnership approached the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation to fund this effort as an on-going program, a departure from their usual one-year competitive funding process. This fund continues to work effectively and efficiently, providing quick assistance to hundreds of seniors in the county. Two of the partnership agencies serve as fiduciaries.
Partnership Formed
In 2001, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Partnership proposal provided a catalyst for a core group of fifteen organizations, to form the Blueprint for Aging Services Partnership (BASP). Although the proposal was not funded, the energy created by coming together to write the proposal, inspired the group to continue its efforts to create a collaborative plan to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding senior population and their caregivers. BASP obtained funding to support a coordinator to facilitate development of the plan to identify current gaps in service and create a future vision for meeting the needs of the elderly, emphasizing long term care system change.
More than 40 community agencies and 70 individuals participated in this effort over the past two years. Through publicity and direct solicitation, older adults, community leaders, professionals, and family caregivers participated in the project. Several large community meetings led to the creation of a core leadership team and five workgroups. This core leadership team established guidelines and coordinated the project. Catholic Social Services served as the fiduciary and lead administrative agency. Other core leadership members represented: Area Agency on Aging 1-B, HelpSource, Housing Bureau for Seniors, Neighborhood Senior Services, University of Michigan Turner Geriatric Clinic, and Washtenaw County Health Organization-Community Support and Treatment Services. The five workgroups were Health, Housing, Quality of Life, Social Services and Transportation. These diverse community representatives participated in lively discussions in the workgroups, meeting at least monthly, and invited other professionals and consumers to present information and ideas. This cumulative effort produced a 150-page consensus report, a vision for the future.
Blueprint for Aging Receives National Funding
The content of this report provided the groundwork for a proposal submitted to the Community Partnerships for Older Adults Program (CPFOA) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2004. This proposal was granted, and Blueprint for Aging (formerly the Blueprint for Aging Services Partnership) became one of few select projects across the country to receive an 18-month strategic planning grant and the opportunity to re-apply for a $750,000 implementation grant.
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| Partners |
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| The following is a list of organizations that have contributed great time and energy to the Blueprint for Aging and its predecessor, the Blueprint for Aging Services Partnership. Leadership includes project partners, human services community collaborative, and funding organizations. |
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Alzheimer's Association Michigan Great Lakes Chapter
American Red Cross
Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation
Ann Arbor Police Department
Ann Arbor Senior Center
Ann Arbor Transportation Authority
Area Agency on Aging 1-B
Asset Protection Solutions
Catholic Social Services
Chelsea Area Transportation System
Chelsea Community Hospital
Chelsea Senior Center
Citizens for Better Care
City of Ann Arbor
City of Ypsilanti Senior Center
Comfort Keepers
Community Respite Center, Inc
Community Support and Treatment Services
Cranbrook Tower Apartments
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Services, Inc
Dexter Senior Center
Dispute Resolution Center
Elderwise, Eastern Michigan University
Evangelical Homes of Michigan
Fairfax Manor
Generations Together
Glacier Hills Retirement Community
HelpSource
Home Instead Senior Care
Hospice of Michigan
Housing Bureau for Seniors
Human Services Community Collaborative
Institute of Gerontology
Jewish Community Center
Jewish Family Services
Kennedy Care
Legal Services of South Central Michigan
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Learning in Retirement
Lighthouse Technologies
Lincoln Senior Center
Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Michigan Visiting Nurses
Michigan Visiting Physicians
Motor Meals of Ann Arbor
National Association of Retired Federal Employees
Neighborhood Senior Services
Nonprofit Enterprise at Work
Northfield Human Services
Northwestern Mutual
Office of Services to the Aging
Parkway Meadows
RSC Consulting
Saline Area Senior Citizens
Silver Club-Turner Senior Resource Center
St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Senior Health Services
Superior Woods
TheRideSource
Total Care, Inc
Turner Senior Resource Center
UMHS Turner Geriatric Clinic
University of Michigan Work/Life Resource Center
University Living
University of Michigan Program for Multicultural Health
University of Michigan School of Nursing
University of Michigan School of Social Work
Visiting Angels of Washtenaw County
Washtenaw Area Transportation Study
Washtenaw County Commissioners
Washtenaw County Department of Planning and Environment
Washtenaw County ETCS
(Employment, Training and Community Services)
Washtenaw County Veterans Services
Ypsilanti Township Senior Center
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Human Services Community Collaborative
The Washtenaw County Human Services Community Collaborative (HSCC) was established in early 2002. The HSCC fulfills a state requirement that each Michigan community have in place a Multi-Purpose Collaborative Body (MPCB). The HSCC evolved from the Washtenaw County Family Services Collaborative Council to provide leadership for policies and funding that affect services for children, families and adults among private and public community institutions.
Council membership includes consumers, advocates, and representatives of mental health, public health, social services, education, and the courts, as well as private agencies and foundations. |
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| Grantors |
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Community Partnerships for Older Adults - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates its grantmaking in four goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to quality health care at reasonable cost; to improve the quality of care and support for people with chronic health conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse - tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs.
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Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation
Mission:
The Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation is dedicated to building endowment to enrich the quality of life in Washtenaw County by providing community leadership, making grants and serving donors.
The Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in Michigan--a permanent and growing endowment built by gifts from thousands of individuals and organizations, all concerned about improving the quality of life in the greater Ann Arbor area. Our continuing success is a tribute both to the visionary citizens who created the Foundation and the hundreds of donors, volunteers, committee members and advisors who continue to make it grow, thrive and evolve.
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The rapidly increasing numbers and diversity of older adults in Washtenaw County will continue to add potentially overwhelming demands on the support services and programs for seniors in the County.
Changes During the Decade of the '90s.
A review of demographic trends over the 1990-2000 period led to the following observations:
- The total population in Washtenaw County grew more than twice as fast as Michigan's as a whole.
- The County's age 60-plus population grew more than three times as fast as did Michigan's comparable segment.
- The age 85-plus population in the County recorded a growth rate that was 80 percent higher than for the 60-plus population as a whole, indicating a trend toward a higher average age of older adults in the County.
- The minority population aged 60 and over grew by an above-average 50 percent during the period, constituting 13 percent of the 60-plus population by 2000.
- Washtenaw County saw its total foreign-born population increase by more that two-thirds during the 1990-2000 period, to over 10 percent of the total population.
Projected Growth in the Senior Population.
A review of demographic projections for the 2000-2030 period led to the following observations:
- Between 2000 and 2030 the 65-plus population in the County is projected to grow nearly three-fold, from about 26,000 to nearly 73,000.
- Meanwhile the County's total population is projected to increase only 39 percent, from about 323,000 in 2000 to over 448,000 in 2030.
- As a result of significantly above-average rate of growth, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over is projected to double, from 8 percent of total in 2000 to 16 percent of total in 2030.
- The actual number of additional seniors added each successive decade between 2000 and 2030 is projected to grow to significant levels (e.g. Washtenaw County will add 7,400 seniors between 2000 and 2010, and will grow by 17,900 seniors in the decade ending 2030.)
- An exceptionally high rate of growth in the senior population of Washtenaw County is expected to be sustained between 2010 and 2020 (i.e. a projected 53 percent growth rate for the decade.)
- The exceedingly high rate of growth projected for the County's senior population after 2010 should not be allowed to obscure the fact that this segment of the population is currently growing at a rapid rate (i.e. an estimated 28 percent growth rate for the current decade.)
Conclusion
The rapidly increasing numbers and diversity of older adults in Washtenaw County will continue to add potentially overwhelming demands on the support services and programs for seniors in the County.
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The Blueprint for Aging is comprised of five work groups, each with a separate focus, and the Core Leadership Team. The Core Leadership Team provides leadership and expert guidance to the project as a whole. The work groups (addressing Advocacy, Family Caregiver Support, Long-term Care, Publicity, and Technology respectively) are charged with closely studying their areas and gathering input from the public in a variety of ways including conducting focus groups, surveys, and interviews. Results and recommendations from these groups will be synthesized by the Core Leadership Team to produce a comprehensive plan to best respond to older adults in this county.
Advocacy
The Blueprint for Aging envisions the organization of the new Senior Advocates of Washtenaw (SAW), a coalition of advocacy groups, senior focused activities, and individual advocates. This formal coalition will take action on public policy proposals affecting the elderly, advocate for systems change, and engage in intense study of long term care issues and serve as an incubator for new approaches to long term care service delivery.
Family Caregiver Support
The BASP report recognized that family caregivers are the essential underpinning of in-home services for older adults, and that older adults are often themselves caregivers for spouses and other family members. The report recognized the value of supportive services such as respite, but found that available respite services fall short of the need, while caregiver educational efforts reach only a small fraction of family caregivers.
In recognition of the importance of supporting caregivers, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation approached the Blueprint for Aging Core Leadership Team with a proposal to direct a significant portion of the foundation's ongoing funding from the Anna Botsford Bach endowment toward caregiver services. The foundation invited the Blueprint to facilitate collaboration among county stakeholders and the development of a plan for caregiver services that will direct the allocation of foundation funding among any number of potential supportive services.
The Family Caregiver Support Workgroup will gain a greater understanding of caregiver issues and unmet needs through focus groups, one-on-one interviews and surveys. The group will produce a coordinated plan for the provision of caregiver services that utilizes ongoing funding to supplement and wrap-around existing supportive services.
Long-Term Care Systems Change
The first goal of this Workgroup is to engage Washtenaw County residents of all ages in the process of planning long term care system change. Residents will be engaged through community forums and focus groups with diverse populations that solicit input and mobilize the community to take action. Secondly, the group will establish a mechanism that utilizes a collaborative process to identify the need for program innovations and implement strategies to achieve these changes. This multi-faceted process is three-pronged:
- Wide dissemination of information to all age groups in the community.
- Grass roots efforts to engage neighborhood volunteers in matching their neighbors with the services they want.
- Restructuring of services to bring them to currently underserved areas and make them more accessible to diverse populations and to overburdened caregivers.
Publicity
The primary goals of the Publicity Work Group are to create a communications strategy for the Blueprint for Aging, promote uniform and consistent messages to the media, and support other work groups in getting their individual messages to the media. In addition, the Publicity Workgroup's role is to create materials that will educate the internal and external community about the Blueprint for Aging through various types of media as well as to spread these materials throughout all of Washtenaw County
Technology
The Technology Workgroup will develop a virtual "Shared Point of Access" (SPA) to address the challenges of both privacy and quality of service issues. This web-based multi-user database management system will be visible and accessible to consumers, providers and caregivers. It will offer information about long term care and supportive services in Washtenaw County, key resources, and links to services. This secured database will also offer client information management, reporting, information sharing and opportunities for data analysis. Providers will have restricted access to shared information about consumers and the services provided, but each provider will have the flexibility to design their own exclusive forms related to their unique needs.
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Workgroups Updates
Advocacy Workgroup Goals:
- Establish a Senior Advocates of Washtenaw coalition of local advocacy groups, (AARP, Gray Panthers, unions, Gay Lesbian Older Women, university students) and other stakeholders that is dedicated to reviewing older adult services and advocating on long term care issues.
- Develop enhanced capacity for the education of advocates to be informed about aging issues, and called to action in a timely manner to affect public policy decisions.
- Develop the advocacy coalition's 'think-tank' capacity to not just react to legislative proposals, but to analyze issues and incubate potential solutions to problems that will result in new programs and policies that may be introduced as legislative proposals by state and federal representatives.
Family Caregiver Support Workgroup
Final Report
This report provides a general overview of the types of techniques used by the workgroup to gather information from and about family caregivers across Washtenaw County. The report also presents the information collected from these various techniques.
Click here to access the full report.
The fact that people are living longer and that many of us will need to receive care from a caregiver at some point in our lives is indisputable. In the early years, people are taking longer to become fully prepared for adult life, and at the other end of the life span, people are living longer. One RAND Corporation study cited by the New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests that 40 percent of people living into old age will eventually suffer from some form of dementia. Given the demographic "goat in the python" of the aging of the first of the baby boomers, the implications are clear that perhaps even some millions of people will need caregiving. The President's Council on Bioethics report, "Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society," discusses, among many other issues, the changes in society that are beginning to emphasize the importance of the family as the fundamental unit of society, rather than the individual.
Long Term Care Workgroup
Click here for the Subcommittee's Summary report.
Publicity Workgroup
Specific tasks include developing a logo, letterhead, and other materials such as brochures and PowerPoint presentations to present to agencies, foundations, older adults, adult children, and a number of other audiences. Secondly, the group will work to develop and strengthen relationships with local radio, television, and newsprint affiliates and collaborate with them about creative ways to inform the community about the Blueprint and aging issues in general.
Technology Workgroup
Considerable advantages are available to consumers who participate in the SPA business agreement that will allow agencies to share service and demographic information while respecting HIPAA guidelines of privacy and confidentiality.
These include:
- The web-site will offer information and referral, key resources, eligibility determination, enrollment and links to services both public and private pay.
- The consumer (or perhaps caregiver) may have access to their own information. For seniors (or for family members who may live far away) there is greater "real time" accountability for service providers as well as a safety benefit of knowing what or who to expect.
- A component of the SPA will trigger an alert when the individual's health status or care plan changes. This offers both consumers and the public access to a team of professionals and experienced caregivers (a Caregiver Consultation Team) to engage in e-mail and chat-based problem solving among seniors, family members and service providers.
- Accurate reporting will be available about services delivered, number of unduplicated persons served, collaborative ventures, service hours, etc.
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| Address: |
5361 McAuley Drive
, P.O Box 995
Ann Arbor, MI 48106 |
Office:
Fax:
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734-712-3625
734-712-7765
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