ORDER-2023-51 : Field Demonstration SIG Project Grant FY23 To support the development and implementation of outreach and marketing of our Council on Aging to older adults and care givers.

Transcript (~11 min @ 1:08:55)

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▶ 1:08:55 Leila Migliorelli: All right, moving along order 2023-51 field demonstration Sig project Grant fy23 to support the development and implementation of Outreach and marketing of our Council on Aging to older adults and caregivers tonight. We have executive director and the Council of Aging DC mancello here

▶ 1:09:15 Speaker 13: to speak on this order. Thank you madam, chair counselors. So the executive office of eldorf fears put out in our P2, Massachusetts Council on Aging And I would say about a third of the 350 councils on Aging applied and there were 20 Awards. And Melrose received one of those 20 Awards. It actually aligns with our strategic plan. I have to plug my board one more time today. I've had so many meetings. I have a very engaged. Board who is invested in the Council on Aging they've got they have their goals all set and number one goal. The Strategic plan was to do A needs assessment. And the reason for the needs assessment is As you know demographics are changing. We have a larger group of older adults from the 16 up that are coming. They're already here. They're in Melrose. What do we want to do to meet the needs of all older adults? We do foresee some program changes and different healthy. Groups, we also fit into the larger plans of the housing. Scarcity and what the needs are and what keeps our older Folks up at night worrying about a lot of house-rich pocket poor how to connect them to Social Services, but the needs assessment will hopefully give us the answers that we need so that we can make great decisions moving forward. The proposed needs assessment would be done by UMass, Boston. They are the experts in gerontology and social demographic research. They have a whole department. That's basically geared on Aging. This $8,000 award would be the first step in the process. I have support from other funds and of course my dedicated friends of The Milano Center they're voting tomorrow. And we'll go from there. So it's it'll be about a six-month process and then we'll be able to make some concrete decisions. We'll keep in the loop and give you the end result in a report. any questions

▶ 1:11:37 Speaker 7: Vice chair Jamal Dean. Thank you.

▶ 1:11:38 Maya Jamaleddine: With us tonight. Thank you always pleasure to see you. Thank you. I'm I wanted to ask about you know, you you actually trying every time you come you show us and you model how you know thoughtful. Your department is and trying to serve every different populations, whether our lgbtq community, whether our you know mental health and and all the, you know, very inclusive in a way. I wanted to see if you have any if you thought of having those resources being translated in different languages for our population that they you know,

▶ 1:12:30 Speaker 13: that's actually under our one of the goals in the Strategic plan was accessibility and accessibility is not only just folks with disabilities but also different different conditions, but also many many different languages and I think the needs Survey will also give us we know what the demographics are as far as the number of population. You know, how many different cultures but we don't know what the language needs are in that capacity. So I think that would be very very helpful. You know, we we handle our language crisis is now with the pocket translator are an app, but I think to reach the population so that they're able to answer. It's no different than Our senior Elders don't have computers. We have folks that don't speak English as a primary language. So it's definitely a consideration. So

▶ 1:13:24 Maya Jamaleddine: you we do have population that do reach out to your department and their English is not there correct language and how do we support them?

▶ 1:13:34 Speaker 13: So we have a service through City Hall that we can call for translation services or like I said, we we try to tap in one of our examples was three of our kitchen folks actually speak Italian. And the family only spoke Italian. So on the spot to diagnose what was going on. We used the kitchen volunteers, but to get into a case management of a confidentiality or something that they need then we would get a professional service.

▶ 1:14:02 Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. Thank you.

▶ 1:14:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: Councilor McMaster, thank you. Madam. Chair good evening. Thank you for being here. You talked about the 60 plus population being historically served by the Council on Aging Senior Center when you talk about older adult, are you talking 55 50? I mean I've seen both numbers. What is the demographic that this is going to focus on

▶ 1:14:26 Speaker 13: well, we're funded for 16 over the focus would be 50 and up because we believe that you know, within five years gonna be 55 within 10 years. They'll be 60 so we can have some future something to gauge it on basically what the needs are.

▶ 1:14:42 Shawn M. MacMaster: And I was glad to hear that your partnering with the gerontology Institute at the McCormick graduate school. It's a national leader in the field of gerontology research. Yes, and I think you know, they have some predictive models out there that you can look at Miller rooms now and see what our demographics will look like up until I think 2035 which is great. I just wanted to be clear on what specifically the gerontology Institute will be doing. Are they doing today hair right and needs assessment or they

▶ 1:15:13 Speaker 13: doing something else? They're actually doing performing the needs assessment from start to finish and that's Gathering the day will we do the input with the the board will be doing the input on what questions to ask what we're looking for. We've already studied like you said before previous models. I mean we have the Elder index from UMass Boston so we can see what we just don't know what we want to be right on top of what we think the needs are specific to to Melrose and the most important part that I left out un I apologize. Is that the final goal besides all this is to meet the needs and get the resources and make sure it would taken care of all different entities of our population. But is that we will become potentially become a age-friendly dementia friendly certified community. So it involves everything businesses. The original Grant was proposed as marketing or caregiver supports. I'm a fan for caregiver supports because if we say it's 15 over we all have we have younger folks 40 year olds caring for elders. 50 year olds that don't know what they're supposed to do. Further on you know all the way down the Spectrum, but I felt that we can't make a decision on caregiver supports. If we don't know what the general needs of the public are.

▶ 1:16:31 Shawn M. MacMaster: That's great. And I think I think the council would very much welcome you coming back with the findings to report to us into the extent that the gerontology Institute would be willing to that's I do think it's also an opportunity to look at what the needs are going to be perspectively from funding standpoint. One of the things that year after year I've raised is that your budget hasn't changed at all. Yeah with the Baby Boomers aging out of the workplace, you know, there's Your potentially interacting with more and you're proactively now looking to enter act with the population that is not 60 plus so I think we need to identify what those needs are going to be for both populations 60 plus and less than 60 and we can only make informed decisions if we're if we're aware of the data which this data that exists now, but I think we need to take that into account when we look at your budget moving forward.

▶ 1:17:24 Speaker 13: And we have a gap two of the under 60 with disability coping with a disability. It's very very difficult. And technically there's more older adults in Melrose than school children. Although I know the school budget is expensive, but you can't compare the money to the money, but it's certainly if you talk about the folks. There's more older adults and Melrose than in school children

▶ 1:17:47 Shawn M. MacMaster: great looking forward to Seeing what opportunities exist to provide services that also help people age at home, too. Yes. Thank you for all your

▶ 1:17:55 Speaker 13: good work. Thank you.

▶ 1:17:56 Speaker 7: Counts our crime Katie councilman McMaster

▶ 1:17:58 Manjula Karamcheti: kind of hit the nail in the head in terms of what I was going to say, so I won't go on and on about it, but I do agree and I saw a lot of nods within the council too that coming back and sharing that information with us would be very welcome and appreciated because I think it really does inform the decisions that we want to make as a council in the community for for our aging population, and I think doing that. Well, all so allows us to support other populations as well. So right thank you for applying for this. Thank you for seeing it out and definitely look forward to getting that data. So it'll help us do our jobs better, too. Thank you.

▶ 1:18:41 Speaker 7: counselor garepe

▶ 1:18:42 Mark Garipay: thank you madam chair. Thank you. Miss. Minciano for being here. I just want to thank you in your board for all you do for our seniors. I don't have any questions at this time. I'll make a motion for to recommend this for passage to the people born.

▶ 1:18:57 Speaker 1: second

▶ 1:18:58 Speaker 7: motion to recommend for passage made by counselor Carmen get her pay second if I counselor Carm Shady. Mr. Clark

▶ 1:19:09 Speaker 2: Please change your model Dean. Yes. Counselor McMaster. Yes counselor. Sonella. Yes counselor Eccles. Yes counselor garapay. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes. How's the Carm Shetty? Yes counselor bremski. Yes Council Williams. Yes, president Grigoraitis. Yes and cheer. Migliorelli. Yes. That's unanimous 11. Yes.

▶ 1:19:28 Speaker 7: This morning brought to the full council at our next meeting. Thank you.