Each year of the National NORCs Aging in Place Initiative, The Jewish Federations of North America organizes and facilitates an annual stakeholders meeting (the “NORCs Annual Meeting”) of current and past grantees. This year, THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, a past grantee, is co-hosting the event with UJC in Baltimore, Maryland from March 22nd – 24th. Baltimore’s NORC-Supportive Services Program, Senior Friendly Neighborhoods, was one of five original grantees who began participation in the initiative in 2002.
The 2009 NORCs Annual Meeting will focus on national trends in aging and how these trends can or will impact NORC Supportive Services Programs. It will also look out how these trends will shape the way in which foundations and related funders will support the field of community-based aging services into the future. Additionally, participants will hear from representatives of the Administration on Aging and the Senate Subcommittee on Retirement and Aging on the direction of public policies on Aging-in-Place and related community-based services for older adults.
As a national initiative, participants of this 3-day conference will spend considerable time sharing experiences, best practices, and tools regarding several common elements and themes of the NORC Supportive Services Program paradigm. THE ASSOCIATED will present on the Sustainability of its program in the years since its federal grant expired in 2005. Other grantees will present on Program Implementation and Collaboration; Volunteer Programs; Serving Diverse Populations; and National and Local Program Evaluations. Also to be discussed is the status of Community Innovations for Aging in Place, a program based on the National NORCs Initiative and authorized in the 2006 Amendments of the Older Americans Act.
The program was created by Congress in reaction to the positive contributions the national NORCs initiative has made to expanding the nation’s knowledge and understanding of the older population and the aging process; promoting the use of innovative ideas and best practices in programs and services for older individuals; helping to meet the needs for trained personnel in the field of aging; and increasing awareness of older adults of the need to assume personal responsibility for their own longevity. Representatives of Baltimore’s Senior Friendly Neighborhoods program and several other NORCs grantees from around the country testified before Congress in favor of Community Innovations for Aging in Place, during the hearings that framed the 2006 reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.
Presentations and supportive materials generated from the 2009 NORCs Annual Meeting will be posted to this site in April. For more information about Baltimore’s Senior Friendly Neighborhoods program, contact Mary R. Pivawer, Director, at 410-843-7334