Aging/Older Adults

The Consumer Planning and Implementation Group (CPIG) was formed as a way to include consumers in the Real Choice Systems Change grant activities. CPIG represents consumers across disability, age, ethnicity, geographic locations, and include community advocates/providers. CPIG provides input on grant activities and provides recommendations to the Collaborative Team (consumers and representatives for Massachusetts’ Real Choice and Independence Plus grants).

As part of the Massachusetts Independence Plus grant, the workgroup recognized there was a certain amount of risk associated with individualized budgeting. They devised a “Incident Reporting” System that would document any incidents (such as fall, funding problems, injuries) that would compromise the health of an individual with disabilities being served under the program. The forms were created to assist a future Massachusetts IP waiver and have not yet been adopted

The State of Massachusetts received Real Choice and Independence Plus grants. These presentations describe the projects, their structure, and an overview of grant activities. The goal of the Real Choice grant was to improve the quality and accessibility of home and community-based services available to individuals with disabilities. The goal of the Independence Plus grant was to recreate budgeting so that consumers were able to direct their budget and the services they receive.

As part of its CPASS grant, Alaska developed a curriculum for personal care assistant training. This curriculum goes through the various responsibilities that a home health worker would encounter. The curriculum is a total of 40 hours, followed up by written exams. These are the appendices to go along with Alaska's Personal Care Assistance 40 Hour Training Curriculum

This document is from the Aging and Disability Policy Summit. It notes the priority areas regarding aging and disability policy. They are: housing, transportation, health care, employment, education, and community participation. This worksheet provides a valuable framework for defining issues, activities and goals needed to enact change.

These two presentations cover community access and inclusion for persons with disabilities, a focus of the Idaho Real Choice Systems Change Grants. The presentations provide guidelines for planning for community access and a model for assessment of community inclusion.

This presentation gives a brief overview of Idaho’s Real Choice grant and Money Follows the Person grant. The goals of the project were to: reduce the stigmatization of people with disabilities, complete and economic analysis of the current Medicaid system, community development, and to complete and effectiveness study. Review their key activities, methodology, and evaluation.

In September 2004, Minnesota’s Real Choice Systems Changes grantees presented at the Illinois 2004 Systems Change Seminar. Presentations covered the Minnesota’s Personal Assistance Care Program, QA/QI grant, ADRC grant, and its Senior Health Insurance Program. A variety of topics covered include quality assurance, stakeholder involvement and personal assisted services

The following information was presented at the Illinois 2004 Systems Change Seminar. Topics presented included: trends in long-term care, progress on the Illinois Community-based Treatment Alternatives for Children (CTAC) grants, the Illinois Housing Development Authority and how its work pertains to persons with disabilities, and Michigan’s progress on its Real Choice Systems Change grants.

This brief recognizes the issues that face home care workers – including low wages, difficult work, and few, if any, benefits. At the same time, demands for home health care are increasing. This document, written on behalf of the Service Employees International Union, advocates on behalf of home health workers to raise wages in order to encourage participation in a workforce that assists Illinois vulnerable populations.