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February 28, 2008, a letter from the
Chair
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Colleagues,
The following is an update on the Aging and
Behavioral Health Alliance of East Central Ohio:
Membership: We are growing in numbers. Last week at
an Area Agency on Aging conference we added 12 new
members bringing our total to approximately 105,
starting two years ago with less than 30.
Current jointly sponsored and funded initiatives: In
the fall of 2007 Susan Sigmon from the Area Agency
on Aging with writing assistance from my associate,
Jeanette Biermann, submitted an application for a
mini grant that was funded for $8,000 from the state
of OHio to increase the detection of depression and
cognitive decline in older adults who are receiving
in home care services.
ABHA-ECO used part of the this state grant ($1,000)
along with funding ($500) from the Office of
Geriatric Medicine at NEOUCOM through Barbara
Palmisano's efforts as well as funding ($500) from
Dr. Harvey Sterns' dept at the University of Akron
(the Institute for Life Span Development and
Gerontology), in addition to "in-kind" contributions
from the Dept of Psychiatry, Summa Health Systems,
such as meeting space and my professional time --to
bring Dr. Peter Lichtenberg from Wayne State
University to introduce his evidence-based screening
instrument, The MacNeill-Lichtenberg Decision Tree.
That program was held on November 9th at the Summa
auditorium.
On March 6th and 31st a "train the trainer" series
begins at the AAA office in Uniontown funded also
through the mini-grant written from the Older
Ohioans' Behavioral Health Initiative. I will be
conducting the training series that is primarily for
home health staff educators and supervisors. In
addition, Susan Sigmon and I are scheduling a follow
up teleconference call to answer questions after the
screening tool has been implemented by front line
staff. For questions about the logistics of the
training, please contact the AAA office.
Future initiatives: On February 22nd and 26th, Jerry
Craig, manager at the Summit County ADM board,
conducted brainstorming sessions from reps from
several geriatric care and mental health agencies to
examine the feasibility of applying for a federal
grant to expand services to underserved older
adults. He has requested that ABHA-ECO continue the
effort of bringing together community stakeholders
for purposes of designing and seeking out funding
for geriatric mental health initiatives. That will
be the direction of ABHA-ECO throughout the rest of
2008.
Meeting Schedule: Please keep the attached schedule
for meetings of ABHA-ECO. The Steering Committee
will meet next on Wed March 5th at 11:00 am at St.
Thomas Hospital, to finalize the programming for the
Summa and NEOUCOM- jointly sponsored Geriatric
Behavioral Health annual conference on Friday,
October 24th.
Thank you for your attention and support of ABHA-ECO
Paula Hartman-Stein, Ph.D.
Chair, ABHA-ECO
Director of Geriatric Psychology, Summa Health
System
email: cha@en.com |
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2009
The Aging and Health Alliance of East Central Ohio
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