PCOA also receives funding through the Regional Transportation Plan to reimburse volunteers who are providing rides to older adults through a Neighbors Care Program. Eligible programs submit monthly mileage requests to PCOA for reimbursement. In turn, each program then pays the volunteers for recorded trips, which total approximately 400,00 miles per year. Additionally, PCOA is researching possibilities for transportation assistance through ride hailing services, door-to-door delivery services for groceries and other goods to help people who can’t otherwise get needed supplies, and partnerships with other private transportation providers.
6. What strategies will the agency use to modernize nutrition programs and senior centers in your planning and service area to target Boomers?
PCOA purchased a new building just before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Katie, as it’s known, is the Katie Dusenberry Healthy Aging Center. Additionally, PCOA has introduced the V irtual Katie. As a “healthy aging center,” it is dedicated to healthy living classes, lectures on various topics, and will have a computer lab in the near future. This is one approach to modernizing PCOA’s strategy targeting all older adults, especially Boomers. Healthy Living programs are modernizing their approach to attract older adults through a variety of formats, from in-person to virtual, and creating more interactive programming. PCOA has created a new Vice President position who will be in charge of Healthy Living, Nutrition, and other programs that fall within a new Health & Community Partnerships department. This new Vice President, who was hired in April 2023, is charged with innovation, creating new niche areas/services, and improving the existing long-term services offered by PCOA in the Pima County community.
7. What strategies will the agency use to offer and/or expand self-directed care options?
Self-directed care options that PCOA has offered for many years are described in the next paragraph. New to PCOA since the last Area Plan are services such as Friends-and- Neighbors, Options Counseling for Family Caregivers and Dementia Capable Southern Arizona, Veteran’s directed care, and Transitions of Care. These services give people much more freedom to choose caregivers, timing of help, approach to the help provided, and control over the provider in terms of choosing people who they already trust, may speak their same language and/or be socially/culturally more in keeping with the care recipient. Clients actively participate in services offered in all PCOA programs. For in-home services, the client and Case Manager develop a care plan together based on the needs expressed by the client and the observation of the staff person. While the client receives in-home services from one of the contracted providers, we will accommodate specific requests for a particular provider when possible. The client determines the day and time best for her/him and directs the worker on the delivery of service.
Region II: PCOA
Area Plan 2024-2027
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