Human Services

Aging & Adult Services Grants

Statewide Outcome(s):

Aging and Adult Services Grants supports the following statewide outcome(s).

Strong and stable families and communities.

Minnesotans are healthy.

Context:

Between now and 2030, Minnesota will experience the most profound age shift in its history. Along with the rest of the nation and the world, we will become older not just as individuals but as a society. The baby boomers—1.5 million strong in Minnesota—are leading us into this uncharted territory as they begin to age. By 2030, we will have 1.3 million persons over 65, or one out of every four Minnesotans. Later, in 2050, we will have the largest number ever of people over 85. Over two-thirds of persons age 85 and older have at least one disability. Older persons are more likely to have multiple disabilities, and each of these chronic conditions poses a challenge to the individual’s ability to live independently. Therefore, Minnesotans’ need for community-based long-term care services will continue to increase. Aging and Adult Services Grants support seniors, their families, caregivers and communities to enable seniors to stay in their homes and communities and avoid costly institutionalization.

The purpose of Aging and Adult Services Grants is to provide non-medical social services and supports for older Minnesotans and their families to enable older adults to stay in their own homes and avoid institutionalization. These funds increase service availability and service choice for older Minnesotans in both urban and rural communities, and so provide greater opportunity for Minnesotans to age at home. Several of the state grant programs are aligned and coordinated with the services provided under the federal Older Americans Act (OAA). Federal OAA funds in Minnesota are administered through the Minnesota Board on Aging to provide core social services to at-risk older adults and their family caregivers who are not yet eligible for public programs. Services are targeted to people with the greatest social and economic need.

Strategies:

Aging and Adult Services Grants promote evidence-based models that leverage local private funds and in-kind contributions to promote affordable services that are both dependable and sustainable. Aging and Adult Services grants provide the following services.

·         Nutritional services including congregate meals to 56,000 people, home-delivered meals to 13,000 people, and grocery delivery to 660 people annually.

·         Increased service availability and service choice for older Minnesotans through service development opportunities provided by the Community Service/Community Services Development (CS/SD), Family Caregiver Support, and ElderCare Development Partnership (EDP) grant programs. Services include: transportation, chore, assistance with activities of daily living, and other services that help people stay in their own homes; evidence-based health promotion, chronic disease management, and falls prevention services; and respite and other supportive services to family caregivers. In the FY 2010-2011 biennium, over 14,000 people were served and capacity was increased by more than 6,000 volunteers.

·         Support to more than 16,000 older volunteers per year who provide services through the RSVP, Foster Grandparent, and Senior Companion programs.

·         Through the Senior LinkAge Line®, comprehensive assistance and individualized help to more than 67,000 people through 125,000 calls in 2011. Senior LinkAge Line® has trained long-term care options counselors that assist individuals to find community resources, including supports for family caregivers, counseling about Medicare, supplemental insurance, and other health and long-term care insurance options; and comprehensive prescription medication expense assistance, including assistance with Medicare Part D benefits and Medicare plan selection to beneficiaries of all ages.

·         Information about community-based resources and customized long-term care planning tools to 353,000 visitors in 2011, through www.minnesotahelp.info, a web-based database of over 29,000 services.

·         An intensive long-term care options counseling service provided by the Senior LinkAge Line®, known as Return to Community, that helps people successfully remain in their homes after discharge from a nursing home. Since the launch of this service in 2010, over 2,800 consumers have been contacted for discharge support; of those, direct assistance was provided to 500 older adults at their request to return home and 700 are receiving five years of telephonic follow-up at home.

·         A benefit through the Essential Community Supports program for people who will not be eligible for Medical Assistance.

Services are administered in partnership with Area Agencies on Aging, local counties and tribes, and community providers.

Results:

Minnesota has seen continuous improvement in the number of seniors served by community-based rather than institution-based services. Measures we track include the percent of elderly receiving publicly funded long-term care services who receive HCBS services through the Elderly Waiver, Alternative Care, or home care programs instead of nursing home services. The percent of seniors served in the community has consistently remained steady or improved over the past five years. DHS, through its partners, surveys users of the Senior LinkAge Line® and found an increasing number of people who would recommend Senior LinkAge Line® services to others.

Performance Measures Notes:

1.     Compares FY 2007 (Previous) to FY 2011 (Current). Source: DHS Data Warehouse

2.     Compares 2007 (Previous) to 2011 (Current). Source: Consumer Surveys, WebReferral database

3.     Compares data for the last three quarters of calendar year (CY) 2010 (Previous) to CY 2011 data (Current). Source: Return to Community Database

4.     Compares CY 2005 (Previous) to CY 2011 (Current), as measured by an annual survey of family caregivers receiving Older Americans Act-funded caregiver support services. Source: Annual Caregiver Program Participant Survey

More information is available on the DHS dashboard: http://dashboard.dhs.state.mn.us and the Continuing Care Performance Report: http://www.dhs.state.mn.us/main/dhs16_166609.