$121,000 awarded by Tufts Health Plan
Foundation
In only 13 years, there will be 100,000 more
residents age 65 in Rhode Island, but are there enough aging services and
supports to meet the demand?
Recently the Rhode Island College Foundation
was awarded a $121,000 grant from the Tufts Health Plan Foundation to support
the 2017 Building an Age-Friendly Rhode Island project.
Leaders of the project are RIC faculty
members Marianne Raimondo, assistant professor of management and principal
investigator; Constance Milbourne, associate professor of marketing and
co-principal investigator; and Rachel Filinson, professor of gerontology.
Grant funds will go to support implementation
of the project’s 2016 Strategic Plan, which addresses nine key areas lacking in
adequate services and supports for the aged: communication and information,
community and social engagement, economic security, food security and nutrition
assistance, health care coverage, housing, supports to remain at home,
transportation and walkability in public areas.
Strategic goals include advocating for age-friendly policies and legislative reforms; enlisting municipal officials in piloting age-friendly initiatives in cities and towns; recruiting business leaders to adopt age-friendly business practices; integrating behavioral health care into senior housing; and designing interconnected senior hubs in select neighborhoods in Providence.
The 2016 Strategic Plan was informed by the
Aging in Community Subcommittee’s report on age-friendliness in Rhode Island,
which involved RIC faculty participants and financial support from the Tufts
Health Plan Foundation.
Grant funds will also cover faculty stipends,
communications, meetings and events, and contracts with external partners.
Partners are The Providence Center, which
will integrate behavioral health into senior centers; the Senior Center
Directors’ Association, which will work on strategies to rethink the role of
senior centers and help design expanded, innovative models of service delivery
for older adults; and Partnership for a Greater Future Providence, which will
design, with local stakeholders, a new age-friendly system of interconnected
community hubs in three Providence neighborhoods.
“The groundwork has been laid to pursue
age-friendly initiatives in Rhode Island,” said Raimondo. “We’ve assessed the
needs of older Rhode Islanders and identified some of the gaps in services and
we are ready to move forward to implement strategies.”
Raimondo added that the project has also
formed the Coalition to Build an Age-Friendly Rhode Island made up of project
leaders, faith-based and aging advocacy entities, senior center directors,
elder service providers, academics and state agency staff.
“The momentum is building around age-friendly
communities, and we are excited to partner with state and local leaders in
their work to consider and include older adults,” said President of Tufts
Health Plan Foundation Nora Moreno Cargie.
“We are proud collaborators on initiatives
that promote cross-sector conversations, address challenges and inequities
facing communities, and advance policies and practices that support people of
all ages.”
Since 2008 the Tufts Health Plan Foundation
has granted more than $24 million to nonprofits in Rhode Island and
Massachusetts that promote healthy living with an emphasis on older adults.
