Interagency Meeting Minutes

Minutes: 1/12/12

Next Meeting: February 9, 2012

Chairwomen: Debra Obenhoff and Judith McKinnon

Treasurer: Fred Ratto

Secretary: Allison Reynolds


New Hire Minute: None at this time.

Updates:
Homeinstead-Hosting a free webinar monthly on care giving.
Home Front Development Corporation
- Has been awarded a new grant to to help individuals with environmental issues to their homes such as mold mildew, etc.
Warren County Cooperative Extension
- Is looking for applicants for their Eat Smart NY program. The program deals mostly with families with children but may help other individuals. Other programs they have are Supporting Healthy families. Which helps to teach parents and caregivers of preschool age children parenting skills over 6 weeks incentives for participating. Tuesday Feb 28-April 3 6;30-8 at the Queensbury Location.  VITA is another program that helps individuals who qualify to get their taxes done for free.  
Southern Adirondack Child Care Network
- Is doing a quality assurance study. They need individuals to take a survey.
Southern Adirondack Independent Living Center
-February 14 Advocacy Day in Albany call for details 792-3537

Agency Spotlight: Southern Adirondack Independent Living Center
Jocelyn Blanchard discussed the programs that SAIL has to offer. We are not a residential living facility. We help individuals with many different types of disabilities. We work with all age groups.  We provide a variety of services such as advocacy, accessibility surveys, computer classes, independent living skills training, information and referrals and trainings.
SAIL also houses the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion and Traumatic Brian Injury Medicaid Waiver Programs. The two programs serve about 400 people preventing them from being a nursing facility and able to receive services in the community. We also house the Money Follow the Person Demonstration which helps get information to nursing home residents about what their options are. SAIL has served over 1453 people last year and saved NY State $4,541,516 by helping individuals either avoid nursing home placement or bring them out of a nursing home facility.
Long Term Care Council Initiatives
Workforce Development
- Looking to start Aide trainings locally. So that more people could attend.
Housing
-Working on having forums about senior care and accessible housing issues. Also discussing downsizing, waiting lists for housing, planning ahead of time, and solutions for those who live rurally.
Transportation
- Working on updating the Aging in Place transportation guide and making it more usable and more widely distributed
Advocating for more accessible transportation options
Civic Engagement
-Care teams initiative for faith base groups to have free training on how to create and run effective care teams.
-Commuinty forum on decreaseing duplication and unity for best service provision
-Volunteer recognition commuinty day and commuitny vounteer recognition fintiatives

Interagency Meeting Minutes

Minutes: 12/8/11

Next Meeting: January 12,2012

Chairwomen: Debra Obenhoff and Judith McKinnon

Treasurer: Fred Ratto

Secretary: Allison Reynolds

New Hire Minute: High Peaks Hospice is has two positions for RN Hospice Coordinators.

Speaker: From National Grid JoAnn Zales
Discussed the Home Energy Efficiancy Program (HEAP). For those who are disabled or over the age of 60 they chould contact their County OFA for assistance. If an individual is under 60 and gets SSI and Food Stamps they are automatically elligible for HEAP.
Another program is the Care and Share program that helps individuals 60 or older. It is a last resort program that may be able to help those who have emergency situations but do not normally qualify for HEAP.
For eldery individuals that need help filling out the application for HEAP NY Connects may be able to go out to the individuals home and help them with the application.  If you need to coantact JoAnn Zales with any questions you can contact her at (518) 761-5942 or JoAn.Zales@us.ngrid.com

Speaker: From High Peaks Hospice Deanna Webster
Discussed Compassion Fatigue or caregiver burnout.  What is compassion fatigue? It refers to a physical, emotional and spiritual fatigue or exhaustion that takes over a person and causes them to not experience joy or feel and care for themselves. Deanna talked about all the stress that can come along with being a caregiver and working in the Social Services field. Deanna gave examples of how to destress our lives with mental imagery, breathing techniques, and relaxation techniques. Simple things that we dont think about like taking a hot shower or preparing ourselves a healthy meal, listening to music, taking a walk, turning off our phones for a short period of time.  High Peaks Hospice and Pallative Care Inc. (518) 743-1672