HomeMy WebLinkAboutAdvisory Board on Aging Minutes 05 14 2024 1
Orange County Department on Aging
Advisory Board on Aging
Tuesday, May 14; 1—3 pm
Seymour Center Hybrid
MINUTES
In Attendance: Colin Austin, Rachel Bearman, Ann Bradford, Jeff Charles,Jackie Podger, Vibeke Talley, Sheila
Evans (Friends of Seymour Liaison), Dr.Tracey Holsinger (Guest and Advisory Board Applicant); STAFF: Leiha
Edmunds, Kendall McMillan, Shenae McPherson, Dawn Smith, Beverly Shuford, Janice Tyler, and Rachel
Whitney
Absent With Notice: Gigi Rashdi, Sandy Walker, Jerry Gregory, Dick White, John Wilner
Absent Without Notice: James Harris
1. Welcome
a. Colin welcomed everyone. He will be presiding until June 30 when the new board chair will take
over.
2. Introductions and Announcements
a. Colin introduced our guest, Dr. Tracey Holsinger, who shared that she is a geriatric psychologist
who lives in Chapel Hill. Dr. Holsinger applied to the board because she wanted to better
understand what we do and see if there is anything she can do to help.
3. Approval of Minutes—April 9, 2024
a. Minutes were reviewed and approved.
Director's Report
4. Janice reported that the County Manager, Bonnie Hammersley, is retiring on July 17. Janice said that
she will be missed.
5. Janice updated the board on the on Central Pines' Area Agency on Aging (CPAAA) Annual Monitoring
visit. Everything went great and there were no compliance issues.
6. CPAAA is hosting ALIVE (Advancing Livable Inclusive Vibrant Environments: Age Friendly Communities)
event on Wednesday, May 29 from 9 a.m.—4 p.m. The event is being held at AAA and will focus
creating Age-Friendly Communities in our region. Janice will be presenting the MAP, which is also our
age-friendly action plan. The event is free and will provide lunch.
7. Staff updates
a. Our new Food Services Coordinator, Robyn Stewart, has been hired and will start on May 20.
We are so pleased to have her. She brings a lot of experience, as the former Harvest 18 and Ven
Rue general manager, both very nice restaurants.
8. May is Older Americans Month (OAM)
a. BOCC to issue a proclamation announcing Older Americans Month
b. May 2024 OAM's Theme: "Powered by Connection"
9. Aging Well Together Radio Show (AWT)
a. AWT's first anniversary this month. Janice said, "It is hard to believe that it has been a year
since the launch of the show."
10. Upcoming Events
a. Janice encouraged everyone to check new Endless Possibilities Summer 2024 activity guide.
There are lots of great events coming up, see highlights below and plan to attend!
b. Wed, May 15: Health and Wellness Fair 9 a.m. — 1 p.m. Passmore Center
c. Sat, May 18: End of Life Options Expo 12 noon —3 p.m. Seymour Center
d. Shred It/Scam event, "Shred It and Forget It": May 29, Passmore Center and May 30, Seymour
Center. Both events are from 9 am — noon.
e. May 30: Seymour Center, 5:30—8 pm: In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month —The
Seymour center will host, Breaking the Silence of Mental Health — "I'm Good Bro: Unmasking
Black Male Depression," a film about mental health and its struggles from the black male
perspective. Followed by a discussion with Michelle Chambers-Rollins, LCSW and Bryon
Lawrence, LCMHC
f. June 12, Passmore Center 4—6 pm: Volunteer Appreciation Hoedown! Everyone welcome.
g. Turn Up Thursdays every Thursday in May on the Seymour Center Patio. 6 - 8 p.m. Live music
and beverages.
h. May 16, 1—2:30 pm: Friends of the Seymour Center Annual Meeting
i. May 20, 9:30— 11 am: Friends of the Passmore Center Annual Meeting
j. Don't forget, the new Endless Possibilities Summer June—August edition is now available!
New Business
11. Nine vendors put in Request for Proposal (RFP) to be our new lunch program caterer. Three applicants
were invited to interview and offered tastings.
a. Beau Catering of Weaver Dairy Road, Chapel Hill, was selected. Beau's buys locally, is close by
and we were very impressed. They brought in a team of five people. We will not have to be the
caterer's back up and be in kitchen cooking meals as their substitute. Their team will cover in
the event of any staff absences.
b. Janice is working on the contract. Beau's will begin on July 1. The price will increase by$1 per
meal to cover increased food costs.
12. Board Appointments and reappointments
a. We welcome our new members—Jon Wilner and Shahnaz GiGi Rashdi. Jon and GiGi have both
attended our meetings and will be great additions to the board.
13. FY 24-25 Budget- updates and new budget cuts
a. The County manager met with Janice to let her know that OCDoA will have additional cuts
made to our budget because after the budget process started the County found that the sales
tax revenue is not as high as they hoped. In addition, the Medicaid Hold Harmless reduction.
Janice will send information to the Aging board to better explain. The County is losing 2.2
million this current FY which will continue on in the next year.
i. The manager has asked Janice to cut $35K. This figure came from a look back at our
historical spending for the past few years and where we had unspent funds. We had
COVID, Family First and AARP funds that were mandated for use. This was a significant
amount of money that had to be spent first, causing us to leave county funding on the
table.
ii. Everything was looked at to find the money for the reduction.
iii. There will be permanent budget cuts. It will take a long time to recover from this and
potentially next budget year will be even tighter.
b. Our request for the Endless Possibilities 4th quarter printing and newspaper insertion ($16k ask)
was not funded, leaving us with only enough money to publish 3 issues.
C. Our request for$24k for kitchen staffing, needed to fix an error in last year's budget, was not
funded.
d. We will not be getting computer lab furniture.
e. We did receive funding to replace our broken outdoor furniture.
f. The County will reallocate $75,000 from our MAP fund and move it to cover general
department operations, thus reducing the county general fund allocation. Not all money in our
MAP fund is from Carol Woods, we have other funds in that account from health fairs, Handy
Helpers, R Place Respite, and other grants.
g. Working with budget office to create line items for R Place and Handy Helpers.
i. MAP account is the funding source for Handy Helpers and we also ask for a cost share
from the client.
h. The County budget document lists the MAP fund as the "Carol Woods fund," when it should be
named the MAP fund. It is in the process of being renamed.
i. This will be a tough year. The staff did get a salary 6% adjustment last year and this year
another proposed salary adjustment 4% increase. This was a goal of the County
Manager and appreciated. Temporary positions will not be moved to permanent status.
They will remain as temps.
i. What can we do?The board discussed and suggested
i. Looking for grants
ii. Alerting the Friends of the Seymour Center and the Friends of the Passmore Center.
iii. Make donations. Donors may give to the Community Giving Fund or directly to OCDoA.
iv. Hoping when the Home and Community Care grant allocations are made that it will
make up for some of this loss.
2022-27 Master Aging Plan
14. Third Quarter Year 2 updates
a. Community Supports and Health Services—Shenae McPherson and Kim Lamon-Loperfido
Workgroup General Accomplishments:
i. During the January 8 MAP Meeting Leiha Edmonds hosted a training for the workgroup
on using the online reporting form—the form is intended to increase reporting by
organizations in a timely manner and to increase overall data collection to show
progress towards indicators—of note Y2Q2 had 11 partners reporting on 30 different
indicators.
ii. Retired public health professional, community member and MAP workgroup participant
Edith Alfanso-Sobsey has been a liaison with active MAP workgroup members for
follow-up training and support on reporting for quarters 2 and 3—this has helped to
identify gaps, inactive members and opportunities for collaboration as we move forward
toward year 3.
Objective 7.4: Expand services to help older adults age in community.
Strategy 7.4.1: Expand available support for older adults from communities of color.
7.4.1a. Accessibility to and participation in aging services for Asian older adults is increased
through a partnership project between UNC-Apples Service-Learning Students.
iii. We hosted 8 bi-lingual Mandarin speaking UNC students for the semester. The students
contributed to translating over 10 vital documents detailing services and supports for
our Mandarin speaking residents. Provided over 240 hours of social engagement and
support at the center.
Objective 7.3: Coordinate local efforts to enhance affordable health care support.
Strategy 7.3.3: Increase access to health maintenance and prevention resources.
7.3.3b. Safety and accessibility needs are assessed and fulfilled in coordination with home
health agencies.
iv. Completed 21 home safety consultations. Supported approximately 90 community
members with DME loans.
b. Housing (see Kendall's report)
i. Completed presentations on Fair Housing and 411 in Senior Housing, both successful,
and well attended
ii. MPA Student position posted, awaiting applicants. Student will conduct research on
advocacy opportunities for policy change related to accessible and affordable housing.
iii. OCDOA made aware of approved Senior Housing Development on Legion Rd., Long Leaf
Trace, beginning to organize around public comment.
iv. OCHPC has provided Hillsborough Repair Network Status Memo to OCAHC Home
Preservation Sub-committee who plan to advocate for Hillsborough Affordable Housing
funds to be set aside for home repair and modification.
c. Social Participation — Dawn Smith and Rachel Whitney
i. All Staff training with the Autism Society specifically for programmers with
neurodivergent programming and also day-to-day interactions especially at front desk.
ii. Front desk staff and volunteers can refer to the Lobby Inclusion Project that was fully
implemented at both centers for participants speaking a different language. Welcome
packets are available for new participants with department information in English,
Spanish, and Mandarin.
iii. Senior Centers focused on increasing programs with the specific focus to build
connections especially for newer participants and participants who haven't attended in
a while.
iv. New Outreach Coordinator has facilitated and/or participated in 9 outreach events, with
286 participants including targeted traditional minority communities and low vision
groups since coming on board providing information in English, Spanish and Chinese.
d. Communication and Information — Beverly Shuford
i. The Orange County Communicators Workgroup met on Feb. 19 to learn about Language
Access Planning. Staff from The Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) at UNC-
Chapel Hill presented how to implement a plan and why it is so important.
1. The group also heard from members of the Spanish-language media who helped
the communicators to understand how to better communicate with their
organizations as well as the 16,000 Spanish speakers in Orange County.
ii. The Orange County Roadshow was held on Jan. 31 at Cedar Grove Community Center
and Feb. 1 at the Seymour Center. About 90 community members attended. 20 county
departments were present at both events to help community members access
government resources and programs at a convenient location and time for them.
iii. Community Relations provided an Equity Database from Tate Associates and uploaded it
to the Emma, the OC email system. The database contains Organization, Category,Type,
and Contact Information for^240 organizations and businesses
iv. UNC Apples interns with the OCDOA VC55+ division have translated all previous Chinese
E Life columns into English and archived so that any department staff can identify
previous article and plan for future articles without duplication.
v. Aging Well Together radio show presented at the NC Association on Aging Conference in
New Bern on Thu, Mar 14
vi. Community Relations initiated work with CivicPlus (Orange County's web management
system) to create a link so that a Spanish speaker (or other language) could access the
site with Google Translate already enabled in their preferred language.
vii. Aging and Community Relations met to plan the Diversity in Volunteering volunteer
spotlight project, collaborative planning ongoing.
1. Connected Aging's VC55+ division with Community Relations. VC 55+ provided
names and contact information of potential OCDOA volunteers to spotlight in
videos, print and social media. Drafted questions for volunteer interviews.
viii. OCDOA staff tabled at 8 events sharing information in English, Spanish and Chinese
making direct contact with 175 individuals.
15. Mark your calendars for the MAP Steering Committee meeting on Friday, June 7, from 9-11 a.m. at
Carol Woods Retirement Community. Will be reviewing accomplishments for Year Two and planning
for Year Three.
a. Janice thanked Carol Woods for hosting us, saying that, "It is a great contribution and partner in
helping us reach our MAP goals."
b. All Ages All Stages - Rebecca Freeman and Divya Venkataganesan from NC DHHS- Division of
Aging and Adult Services are presenting on the 71"to the MAP Steering Committee.
Committee Progress Reports if needed:
16. Senior Tar Heel Legislature— Dick White/Vibeke Talley
a. Dick is resigning from the Aging Board. He is writing a book and wants to attend to it full time.
He will be missed. This leaves us a vacancy at the AAA board.
b. Dick will also resign as our representative to the STHL. We thank Dick for his outstanding service
as our STHL representative.
c. Plans are underway to appoint Vibeke Talley as our new STHL representative. We are recruiting
for a STHL representative alternate, potentially a Project EngAGE graduate who will also
represent at the AAA.
d. Vibeke reported that the STHL is getting much more organized and active. They are getting
proposals ready by tomorrow to go to the Legislature. Hoping to be more effective and that the
Legislature will listen and favor their proposals.
17. Nursing Home and Adult Care Home Joint Community Advisory Committee—Jackie Podger
a. Jackie reported that they met on Tuesday. They just welcomed their ninth member.Three
people are in the wings waiting to complete the process. We are looking for Alicia and Jemma
and a new person to finish their training. Alicia has finished online training; she needs to finish
visits to nursing home and adult care home.
18. Friends of the Passmore Center— No report
19. Friends of the Seymour Center—Shelia Evans
a. Will have a table at the Health and Wellness Fair at the Passmore Center.
b. Friends Executive approved the budget proposal for 2024-25.
c. Seymour Friends Annual meeting will be on Thu, May 16, 1-3 pm. This is an open meeting, and
everyone is welcome to attend.
d. The "Grow With Google— Protect Yourself Event" had a good attendance and offered a great
presentation. The workshop was presented by the Chapel Hill —Carrboro Area Alumnae
Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Friends of the Robert and Pearl Seymour Center.
e. Shelia said that she would share the budget news to the Friends and update them.
20. Shenae McPherson reported that the said Triangle Non-Profit Leadership and Volunteer Service
awarded our own Norma White an achievement award. Her volunteer work and advocacy all started
with Project EngAGE and OKRA and has rippled out from there. Congratulations to Norma.
Adjournment
Next meeting: June 11 from 1:00—3 p.m.—Seymour Center &Virtual