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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAdvisory Board on Aging Minutes 09-13-2022 Orange County Department on Aging Advisory Board on Aging MINUTES September 13, 2022; 1 -3 pm Seymour Center Hybrid In Attendance: Heather Altman, Colin Austin, Jeff Charles,Jerry Gregory,Vibeke Talley, Sandy Walker, Dick White, Staff: Kim Lamon-Loperfido, Shenae McPherson, Beverly Shuford, and Janice Tyler Guests: BOCC Commissioner Anna Richards, Saru Salvi, Interns Karlie Kemper and Latoya Wilson Absent- Excused: Rachel Bearman Absent: James Harris, Lucinda Poole 1. Introductions and Announcements a. Chair, Heather Altman,welcomed everyone, including our interns and special guests 2. Approval of Minutes -August 9, 2022 a. Approved Director's Report 3. Staff Updates a. Alison Smith has moved from the VC55+ Volunteer Coordinator position to the Human Services Program Coordinator position with Aging Transitions managing the Care Partner Collaborative and Dementia Friendly Business project, as well as providing Seymour Center program support b. The VC 55+Volunteer Coordinator position is open and will be posted soon c. Clayton Foster- New Outreach Coordinator i. Clayton is a former intern with OCDOA. He has finished his BSW and will be starting MSW in the spring. Using the ARPA funds to fund his position he will be working 25 hours a week connecting with or reconnecting with faith-based, underserved groups and communities of color to learn about the Department on Aging's programs and services. d. Lucius Wilson, NCCU MSW graduate student intern working OCDOA and OCDSS 4. Update on Seymour Center Great Hall flood remediation and renovations a. Sheetrock and floors were removed within days of the flood. The air scrubbers have completed their work and the Athletic floor was replaced this weekend. The baseboard will be installed and hopefully we will be back in the space within a week. 5. A Celebration of the Community Service of Robert and Pearl Seymour- Sept. 17, 4 p.m. at Binkley Church and live streamed a. The celebration of Bob and Pearl Seymour's work in the community is open to the public, but guests must register. The program will also be live streamed. Janice will be one of the speakers b. This Friday and Saturday we are showing a documentary about Bob's life. We will show the documentary every quarter for the next year. The documentary highlights his service to the community, social justice work, how proud he was of OCDOA for the inclusion and work we do c. Janice will let the board know when the next dates are for showing the documentary 6. NC Age My Way Kick-off: October 5 a. Age Friendly Community and Age My Way summit will be held Oct 5 at NCSU McKimmon Center. BOCC Chair, Renee Price will be attending.Janice will be speaking about Orange County's Age Friendly work b. Janice will send the invitation to the Board 7. NC Division of Aging and Adult Services - State Aging Plan development a. Janice shared the packet- History of Planning for Age Friendly in NC with the Board. Janice will serve on the State Aging Plan committee. OCDOA's plan is listed first in the this historical document, highlighting OCDOA's leadership in local aging planning for the past 20+years. It is required that the state complete a state aging plan every four years. b. An Age Friendly plan for NC will be completed at a later date. 8. Falls Prevention Awareness Week- Sept. 18-23 a. Janice shared the flyer for the falls prevention series which includes the following clinics: How to Get Up After a Fall; Dizzy Clinic; Myth Busting: Arthritis; and The Importance of Nutrition and Hydration. The series was promoted in numerous venues i. Jeff shared the idea of promoting or coming up with a program to promote lightweight helmets for those with increased falls risk 9. OCPT resumed daily service to the Centers a. Orange County Public Transportation has resumed daily service. Nish Trivedi, formerly with the OC Planning Department and Interim OC Transportation Director, is now the permanent OCPT Transportation Services Director. Nish and staff will be working to update the fleet and recruit drivers. Funding has been a concern of the Aging Board. OCDOA and OCPT are piecing together funding for transportation, including ARPA funds from TJCOG. OCDOA and OCPT are working to let people know that there is now transportation to the Centers and throughout the County 10. COVID Update a. OCDOA had a recent COVID outbreak, we are now 18 days out from that. First time in two years that we had an outbreak that affected staff, participants and volunteers, but everyone is now better. Those not affected covered the staff and volunteer positions that were out b. It will be nice to get back in the great hall once it reopens. It will enable us to spread out more and socially distance c. Curbside meal service was serving1000+ meals per week during COVID. The curbside program's funding is ending at the end of September. The funding requires in-person congregate dining in order to be funded. We are trying to determine participant interest in continuing curbside. We had a waiver to serve curbside. We do have ARPA money that we could still potentially offer curbside for a time. We are trying to figure out if we have enough staff to continue curbside. i. Food insecurity was a concern during the pandemic and our lunch program doubled during that time through the curbside service. Now we are serving close to 700-800 curbside. During the height of pandemic we had a great partnership with law enforcement agencies to deliver meals to those that were transit dependent (ride our public transit).We also delivered to our senior housing communities. This services has ended and those that qualified for Meals on Wheels have transitioned to that service and others have resumed riding public transit and are coming to the Centers.We feel that many folks are afraid to dine inside with masks off,though transportation, income and aging related issues still prevent our older adults from accessing food New Business 11. Green and Healthy Home Initiative (GHHI)- Shenae McPherson a. The GHHI ties perfectly into our Falls Prevention efforts and Handy Helper (HH) Program to provide home improvements for safety and accessibility issues for older adults. We continued to take on and complete numerous projects during COVIDI9. One project coming out of the HH program was the Falls Prevention Initiative, developed by GHHI (Green Healthy Homes Initiative). The 501-c3's focus has been to address the social determinants of health and the racial inequity. The Falls Prevention program partnership will identify older adults aged 55+ who are at risk of falls, and will provide safety and accessibility improvements, while implementing educational meetings to provide healthy lifestyle changes. They will vet and send to us to do the home safety assessment and repairs, rails, lighting, grab bars, etc., and will reimburse us for materials and staff time. This will become a recurring project if the pilot goes well.We have identified approximately 45-50 participants. We were one of 6-7 agencies chosen for the pilot program. The pilot is for age 55+. Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries are not eligible at this time. Hoping that it can be expanded in the next round. b. EMS partnering with us to do the home visits, follow up and educational visits. 12. HOPE NC - First Inclusive Housing Summit on Thursday, November 10 to explore inclusive, affordable housing that meets the needs of people of all ages and abilities: especially the need to belong. a. Flyer- HOPE NC Orange County working in arena of folks with intellectual disabilities. Organization started by a group of moms that have children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) who were trying to plan for what would happen after the parents were gone. Their desire is to build an inclusive housing, building an inclusive (dream) village for people of intellectual abilities, hopefully in OC. If you know of someone who would be interested in living in this type of community, please let Janice know. She would love for them to be on the panel at the summit. Not just for persons with IDD, inclusive community for people of all abilities. Individuals with IDD would have their own apartment but continue to receive Fed&State services but live independently in the inclusive community of people of all abilities i. Discussion followed, zoning has always been a barrier for older adults, IDD, people with disabilities ii. If you want to attend the summit, please let Janice know, and if you know of an older adult interested in attending to be on the panel. Heather would like to attend 13. Direct Care Worker Awards - Nominations accepted through Sept. 15 for the following categories: Client Impact, Longevity, Leadership, Going the Extra Mile, and Rising Star. One person will be chosen as the "Direct Care Worker of the Year." a. A hybrid format Awards Celebration will be held Nov. 3 from 4:30 - 6 p.m. at the Seymour Center and live streamed i. Soliciting gifts for the honor roll. There is a cash prize for the 6 categories b. Kim reported that the nominations have been open since June 15 and they have 17 nominations so far. Nomination is set to close on the September 15th. The committee will extend the deadline for a week if we do not reach 30 by Sep 15. c. Kim invited everyone to join and to nominate if you know of someone who is a caregiver 14. Reappointment of NC Senior Tar Heel Legislature delegates - Delegate Dick White and Alternate Delegate -Keith Cook a. Dick reported that the NC STHL reinvigorated and there is more emphasis on active participation. Mary Warren, Director, Triangle J Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging now requires completion of a form inquiring what delegates have you been doing, if nothing,why not, and what are they going to do going forward i. Dick is interested in continuing.We need a new alternative delegate. Keith has not been able to serve for two years due to illness and other issues; we are concerned about him but unable to contact him. Need an alternate b. This is an important group to advocate for aging services with the general assemble. The requirements are not a great burden, but you must attend meetings and keep your position requirements c. Vibeke expressed interest and Heather nominated her. The board approved and Vibeke agreed. Thank you Vibeke 15.Aging Board appointments -Two vacancies - One vacancy requires Carrboro Town Limits residency a. Saru Salvi is with us today to learn about the board meeting and to share more about herself. She is interested in getting the message out to other people about the services available for older adults, caregivers and the vulnerable. Saru expressed interested in joining the Board, we will move forward with her application and the appointment b. Janice thanked her for her interest and shared the meeting times, board member commitments, MAP workgroup assignment and advocacy 2022-27 Master Aging Plan 16. MAP presentation of the 2022-27 to the BOCC on Sept. 20 a. Janice invited the Board to attend. Colin will join Janice to speak on behalf of the Board. The presentation has been allotted 10 minutes. Note: all BOCC meetings during the next year will be at the Whitted building in Hillsborough 17. MAP workgroups are prioritizing work for Year 1 of 2022-27 MAP and the first quarter meeting are being scheduled a. Meetings are scheduled and coming up this month 18. Recruitment of new MAP intern or contract staff a. Looking for a new MAP intern to replace Cass Dictus 19. Fall meeting of the MAP Steering Committee a. The meeting will be sometime in late October or early November where we will talk about our first year of the new 2022-27 MAP plan. Cherie Rosemond present the evaluation of the 2017-22 MAP evaluation b. We need a Board representative on the MAP Social Participation Workgroup c. The Social Participation Workgroup will now be led by the Program & Operations Managers of both senior centers (Cydnee Sims - Seymour Center; Dawn Smith - Passmore Center) Committee Progress Reports if needed: 20. Dementia Friendly Business Campaign - No report 21. Senior Tar Heel Legislature - Dick White a. Services Committee had 14 top picks to be narrowed to 5 going forward for consideration to be presented to the NC Legislature: Tie vote to restore $50m for transportation; $15m for direct care workers; Housing Trust Fund; Increase in-home care funding and increase funding for the Senior Farmers Market Voucher Program 22.Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee - No Report 23. Nursing Home Community Advisory Committee -Vibeke Talley a. Continuing to make site visits 24. Friends of the Passmore Center- No report 25. Friends of the Seymour Center- No report Adjournment Next meeting: October 11, 2022 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. - Passmore Center and Virtual