Thanks for joining us at the Tri-State "Driving Community Home" Summit on November 28, 2017!

Nearly 200 policy, business, research, advocacy and community leaders from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont joined us at the Tri-State “Driving Community Home” Summit on November 28, 2017 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland, Maine!

Across Northern New England, people in more than 150 towns, cities and counties are working to make sure older residents can thrive in their homes and communities. This inspiring movement is being led mostly by older folks who are redefining how we live in community with one another. They are building transportation networks, running home repair programs, hosting health fairs and educational events, and combating social isolation and loneliness.

The primary goal of the TSLCA is to help these community leaders be as effective as possible through shared learning. Our November Summit was designed to connect community leaders with each other and to valuable tools and information from local, regional and national experts to help them take their work to the next level.

Our participants were thrilled with the content and connections they made at this amazing learning event. Our goal of ensuring our participants left the event with the tools they need to take their work to the next level was met according to the feedback we have received.

We will be updating this page with presentation materials from our keynote and breakout sessions and images from the day!

Presentation Materials

Summit Session Book

Download TSLCA 2017 Summit Session Book

 

Keynote Addresses

Welcome

Jess Maurer, Project Manager, Tri-State Learning Collaborative on Aging

Download Presentation Materials

 

Keynote: Housing Roundtable

Robin LeBlanc, Plan New Hampshire; Ben Frost, NH Housing & Finance Authority; Denise Lord, Maine Housing

Learn what’s happening in Northern New England to address the housing challenges facing older folks and get the tools necessary to start a conversation on new models of housing in your own community. Participants will engage in facilitated table conversations that model an effective community conversation.

Robin LeBlanc’s Visual Aid, Ben Frost’s Presentation Materials and Denise Lord’s Presentation Materials

 

Morning Breakout Sessions

Transportation Best Practices Panel

Learn what’s on the cutting edge of volunteer transportation initiatives in rural America and hear directly from local community leaders about how they started and sustain different models of volunteer transportation programs.

Carol Wright Kenderdine, Co-Director, National Aging and Disability Transportation Center

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Evaluation Intensive – Prove It!

“Prove It!” a hands-on course focusing on the use of data and basic statistics commonly used in public health. This mini-session will include several key aspects of Prove It!, tailored to the needs and interests of the TSLCA membership and stakeholders. The session will include a basic understanding of why we use data and how to use data in planning and evaluation, conveyed through interactive and engaging activities.

Laura Davie, Jo Porter and Amy Costello, Institute for Health Policy & Practice, University of New Hampshire

Download Presentation Handout 1 and Download Presentation Handout 2

 

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Taking Your Initiatives to the Next Level – Planning & Implementation

Dr. Kathy Black

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Taking Your Initiatives to the Next Level – Coalition Building

Frank Caro, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Boston

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Presenter Bios

Anna M. Adachi-Mejia, Ph.D.

Director, Health Promotion Research Center at Dartmouth, The Dartmouth Institute

Dr. Adachi-Mejia is an Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, and of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine. She is the Director of Dartmouth’s Prevention Research Center, the Health Promotion Research Center at Dartmouth. Her work experience includes collaborations with partners in academic, community, and non-profit organizations across the country. As a past recipient of New Connections funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to increase the diversity of researchers from historically underrepresented research communities, she has fostered her special interest in studying rural underserved and minority populations.

Dr. Adachi-Mejia has also conducted photovoice projects since 2010, which began when she received American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant funding. This project engaged participants ranging in age from twelve years old through older adult in diverse rural and urban communities. She subsequently served as a consultant on a photovoice project funded by the NH Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services with Cheshire County, Franklin Pierce University, and Keene State University. For that intervention, she trained college students, administrators, and faculty in using photovoice. Other photovoice collaborations have included projects with the Lakes Region Partnership for Public Health, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Aging Resource Center, Center for Health Equity at Geisel School of Medicine, and other local community partners.

Dr. Adachi-Mejia understands the value of providing opportunities for community members to express their unique voices through their words and images and for them to feel empowered to engage with other community members with their unique perspectives. Today she will be speaking about her current photovoice project funded by the Endowment for Health.

 

Dr. Kathy Black

University of Southern Florida, Sarasota/Manatee

Kathy Black is a Professor of Aging Studies and Social Work at the University of South Florida, Sarasota – Manatee. Dr. Black obtained her Ph.D. from the State University of New York, Albany and Master’s Degrees in Social Work and Gerontology from the University of Southern California and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Black is a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar, a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America, and The Patterson Foundation Initiative Consultant for Age-Friendly Sarasota. Dr. Black has 40 years of experience in the field of aging including work as gerontological researcher, educator, geriatric case manager, medical social worker, and geriatric nurse throughout the continuum of care.

Dr. Black has conducted over 200 presentations at local, state, national, and international venues and has authored over 50 publications.

 

Frank Caro, Ph.D.

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Frank Caro is a Professor Emeritus of Gerontology at UMass Boston. Frank is a sociologist/gerontologist who joined the UMass Boston Gerontology Institute and faculty in 1988. He helped to establish the University’s PhD program in gerontology and the Master’s program in Management in Aging Services. He taught in both programs. He also served as director of the University’s Gerontology Institute. For many years he edited the Journal of Aging & Social Policy. His major research interests were long-term care, productive aging, and residential adjustments of older people.

Frank is a resident of Brookline, MA. As a volunteer, he is a founder and Co-Chair of the Brookline Community Aging Network. He chairs
BrooklineCAN’s Livable Community Advocacy committee. In addition, he is a founder and co-chair of the Town’s Age-Friendly Cities committee. Brookline was the first municipality in New England to join the World Health Organization’s Age-Friendly Cities and Communities program.

 

Jo Cooper

Friends in Action

Jo Cooper grew up on Mt. Desert Island. She has a BA from Wellesley College and an M. Litt. (Master of Letters) from the University of St.
Andrews in Fife, Scotland. She came into the work of volunteer transportation as an active community volunteer and was a trained hospice volunteer and coordinator for many years. She founded Friends in Action (originally named Faith in Action) with start-up funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2003. Jo continues to be an active volunteer herself through Rotary and is the Chair of the Board of Selectmen in her town, Lamoine. She is married to Don Cooper, a recently retired transportation planner, and they have four grown children.

 

Amy Costello

Institute for Health Policy & Practice, University of New Hampshire

Amy Costello is the Director of Health Analytics and Informatics at the Institute for Health Policy and Practice. With the Center Health Analytics,  Amy works closely with the IHPP analytic team to develop information and data system solutions for clients like the NH Department of Health and Human Services, NH Purchasers Group, Accountable Care Learning Network, and Maine Quality Counts.

Amy is also actively engaged with the APCD Council, a federation of organizations and state agencies that are interested in the development, standardization and utility of all-payer healthcare claims databases. Amy brings years of experience with health data standards initiatives, and works closely with states, payers, and Data Standards Maintenance Organizations to design solutions for reporting to federal and state data agencies.

 

Laura Davie

Institute for Health Policy & Practice, University of New Hampshire

Laura Davie is the Director of the Long Term Care and Aging focus area at the Institute for Health Policy and Practice (IHPP). She is also
the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center on Aging and Community Living (CACL), a collaboration between IHPP and the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire.

Laura joined IHPP in 2005. She provides leadership, project management, facilitation, and evaluation across multiple projects focused on person-centered options for older adults to support them to live and age in communities of their choice. Laura collaborates with the NH Department of Health and Human Services, Endowment for Health, US DHHS Administration on Community Living, ServiceLink Aging and Disability Resource Center Network, and many other NH community based organizations.

 

Benjamin Frost, Esq., AICP

New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority

Benjamin Frost, Esq., AICP is the Director of Legal and Public Affairs at New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, where he coordinates federal and state legislative initiatives and serves as internal counsel. He frequently lectures on issues of affordable and
workforce housing, land use law, and ethics. Ben has over 30 years of experience as a land use planner and 20 years as an attorney.
He is a member of the Governing Council of Housing Action NH, a low-income housing advocacy organization and he is the Chairman
of the NH Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy Board.

Ben is the Treasurer of the NH Planners Association and the Public Information Officer of the Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association. He coordinates a national consortium of American Planning Association chapters and divisions that provides free online training for professional planners. Ben is also a member of the legislative committees of the American Planning Association and the NH Bar Association.

Ben holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Geography from Colgate University and Syracuse University, respectively and a law degree from Cornell Law School. He lives in Warner, NH, where he serves as Chairman of the planning board. In their spare time, Ben and his wife Christine seek to employ permaculture principles in the design of their woodland paradise. Ben is also slowly working toward summiting New England’s “Hundred Highest” peaks.

 

Robin LeBlanc

Executive Director, Plan New Hampshire

For nine years, Robin H. LeBlanc has been the Executive Director of Plan NH, the unofficial Smart Growth organization for the Granite State.

Plan NH is a membership organization of planners, designers, builders and communities who care about the impact of our built environment on the fabrics of our towns and neighborhoods. Plan NH’s role, through information and inspiration, is to raise awareness of the impact, including the links between it and our social, economic and environmental health and vitality.

 

Denise Lord

Senior Director of Communications and Planning, MaineHousing

Denise Lord is the Senior Director of Communications and Planning for MaineHousing. She has worked for MaineHousing for five years and is responsible for planning and program development, marketing and communications, and professional development. Her commitment is the application of best practice to achieve long term positive outcomes for Maine people. She also manages the development and implementation of MaineHousing’s strategic planning, leadership development, and operational efficiency initiatives.

Prior to joining MaineHousing she worked as Deputy to the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections and has held positions with the Maine Waste Management Agency and the State Planning Office.

 

Josephine Porter, MPH

Director, Institute for Health Policy and Practice

Josephine Porter, MPH, serves as the Director for the Institute for Health Policy and Practice. Jo joined the Institute in December 2007, as a project director. She served as the Deputy Director for several years, before becoming the Director in 2015. Jo oversees operational
functions across IHPP. She also co-chairs the All-Payer Claims Database Council and serves on the Governor’s Commission for Medicaid Care Management. Jo is part of Academy Health’s State University Partnership Learning Network, and is a steering committee member for that group. She also serves on the UNH Analytics Steering Committee.

Jo brings many years of health care-related project management and program development experience to IHPP. She has private sector experience, including program management with Health Dialog, Inc., a care management firm. She also previously served as the Associate Director of the New Hampshire Health Information Center at UNH, and was the NH BRFSS state coordinator for the NH Department of Health and Human Services.

Her research interests are in health data collection and dissemination, and using data to effectively improve health care quality.

 

Carol Wright Kenderdine

Co-Director, National Aging and Disability Transportation Center

Carol Wright Kenderdine serves as the director of Easterseals Transportation Group which includes serving as co-director of the
National Aging and Disability Transportation Center. Previously at Easterseals, she served as National Director of Easter Seals Project
ACTION and co-director of the National Center on Senior Transportation, and led the Veterans Transportation Assistance Programs.

Carol’s earlier work experience includes serving as Associate Director for the Small Urban & Rural Transit Center, Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, at North Dakota State University, where her primary responsibilities were the development and delivery of national training programs and outreach efforts. She has more than 12 years of experience as Executive Director of senior services and public transportation for a multi-county agency in central North Dakota, served as director of a residential facility for individuals with traumatic brain injuries, held management positions in long-term care, and was an independent consultant in marketing and development.

Carol holds a M.S. in Human Development and Education/Gerontology from North Dakota State University and a B.S. in Speech/English/Education from North Dakota State University.

Photos and Videos from the Summit

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