St. Mary's County, MD State of the County Videos, 22 Sep 2021

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From YouTube: State Of The County 2021 Aging and Human Services

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So our department has been working on a number of things, most of which have been covid related.

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Unfortunately, but fortunately, we've been able to manage and continue providing services and.

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Programs to seniors and older adults, children and families, one of the things that I'd like to.

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Point out is the move of the garvey senior activity center staff to the new garvey.

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Senior activity center, so the completion of the building occurred in april of 2020.

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And the activity staff and the meals, the home, delivered meals and the congregate meal staff.

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Moved to the new location, the the co-location is with the leonardtown library, so we share.

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A building with them, so staff was excited to move to the new building. However,.

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With the senior activity centers being closed by order of the governor of the state of maryland,.

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We weren't able to initiate programs and services through the centers, so we were planning throughout.

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The year, what we could do to help keep the seniors engaged, and we did that by providing remote and.

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Virtual programming activities, exercise classes, information sessions and other videos to help.

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Keep the seniors engaged, so we managed to do that and it has become very popular to the point.

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That with the senior activity center is being re reopened now we plan to continue providing.

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Virtual remote classes recorded classes that are available on youtube and.

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Other formats, so we're excited about doing that and we're going to continue doing that. Even though.

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The senior activity centers have reopened in addition to that, we've planned our meals program.

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Accordingly, so we were providing home delivered meals, only the center is being closed. We were not.

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Providing meals in the center, so congregate, meals were not being provided, but we're talking about.

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Ramping that up again so between last year and this year, we've been planning for the reopening of.

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The congregate meals program and we're not there yet but we're working on it. We are initiating.

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The daily delivery of the home delivered meals so during the height of the pandemic, because.

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Of course, we're still in a pandemic, we were delivering a five pack of meals to older adults.

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Who qualify for the meals so we're phasing in the delivery? The daily delivery five days a week.

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Of the meals to seniors who qualify and we'll do it in stages, according to senior activity center.

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So of the three centers we started with northern and we'll do that for a month and then we'll phase.

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In the next center and then again, the third center, so we're looking forward to re-initiating that.

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We have also been working with our home and community-based services division.

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And that division, one of the major focuses, is providing coordinating services to individuals who.

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Would qualify for a nursing home level of care, but enabling them to remain in their own home.

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So staff members have been diligently working with those consumers to.

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Plan the support that they need to help them stay in their home.

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That, of course, hasn't changed with the pandemic, but we've continued to do that.

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Mostly with staff, teleworking and they've been very efficient and effective doing that the.

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Biggest difference is: we have not been going into the individual's homes to do the assessments and.

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The reassessments we're talking about working on a plan to re-initiate that, when it's necessary.

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And how we will do that so staff and I are looking forward to when we can do that safely.

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In addition to the home and community based services division, we have outreach that we do to.

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Let the community know that we're here what we do and how we do it and a number of our major events.

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Did not happen last year, but this year, thankfully we're working on a plan to reinitiate that.

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Them so over the course of you know. From last summer, to this summer, we've had virtual.

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Programming, we've done a few events that were held outside like a shred event. A medication take back.

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Event for those medications that have expired, people don't want them anymore, along with the.

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Help of the sheriff's office we've been able to collect those unwanted documents that needed to be.

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Shredded we've held that event a couple of times an outdoor event safely held individuals, pull up.

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And someone would retrieve their documents from their car their vehicle and then safely shred.

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Them so we're gearing up to some of the other events that we've had had and held over the years.

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Such as law enforcement, appreciation day lea day as it's known, has been.

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Taking place not necessarily virtually but the event that we held last year.

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Was a one-day event held in the commissioner's meeting room and we honored the honorees.

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With social distancing- and it was very well done this year- we chose to do a video series.

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So focusing on the honorees and every week there were one or two honorees that.

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We focused on and we gave, the background of their work and the good work that they do.

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Our fiscal status we have received a significant amount of grant funds covet related, cares, funding.

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Families firs to help support our meals program and other programs as well. We were fortunate to.

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Get funds to help support not only the seniors with their meals, which would be the home delivery.

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Meals program, but also to help support some of the local businesses. So in an effort to help keep some.

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Of the restaurants going in the community, we had funds that we were allowed to use to help support.

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Restaurants and caterers, and so we use that money for the purpose of providing an additional meal.

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To seniors so, we've contracted with four providers and they provide what their specialty meals are.

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And they were delivered every wednesday, so it was a freshly prepared meal that was delivered in the.

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Middle of the week, something different from the five pack that the seniors were receiving.

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And it was very well received and we were really happy to help support the local businesses as well.

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So for our department, we received quite a bit of grant funds from different state agencies to.

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The tune of over five million dollars, which, with those grant funds it has made us the.

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Second largest department and county government, moving from third largest to the second largest.

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So, managing the additional grant funds, along with the other state and federal and county.

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Funds that we manage to provide services and programs to the community, it's been a large.

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Undertaking for us but happy that we were able to provide additional support to the community.

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The information and assistance division continued by providing medicare information as well as other.

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Benefits education and consultation to seniors, so staff have continued to reach out over the.

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Course of the last year to seniors continue to do that. The senior rides program which provides.

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Transportation to older adults, to doctors, appointments and errands.

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Drivers are volunteer based. We were not able to have that over the course of the last year.

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But we're gearing up again for the coming in the coming months to start providing the senior rides.

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Program so we're looking forward to that the human services division has been instrumental.

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In getting grant funds from the department of housing and community development.

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To help support individuals in the county with their rental assistance as well as homeless,.

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Individuals to eliminate or reduce homelessness in the county, it's been very successful and the.

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Most recent award that we have received is over four million dollars so that, in addition,.

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To other funds has put us in a good position to help people in the community that, as well.

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As other things that we have continued over the the course of the year, the teen court program.

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Which um we can boast that st mary's county was the first to go virtual with the teen.

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Court program helping young people stay on track if they have gotten in trouble and a way to help.

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Wipe the slate clean, so we have volunteers who have been committed to doing that, and staff who.

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Have been really focused on doing that and having a virtual mechanism to continue that program.

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Has been wonderful, so the retired and senior volunteer program, even though we did not have.

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A lot of opportunity for the volunteers to contribute over the course of the year we did have.

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A number of groups who were able to continue, one of which, just one of which is the group.

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Of women who started making face masks for the community and they were able to hand make or sew.

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Over 5000 face masks and they donated them to the community we collected them. Staff collected them.

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And distributed them and they continue to do that because there's still a need and a.

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Request for them they have been distributed to a number of organizations in different.

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Locations in the county, so that's a huge effort. It's a large number of mass from just a handful.

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Of women who have been devoted to making making a contribution to the community and.

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They should be applauded for that and, in addition to that, rsvp has just been staying on top of what.

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They can do for other members of the community, so card making project has been underway.

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Individuals, volunteers have been making hand-making cars and then the cars are collected.

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And sent to different people organizations in the community. So that's another thing that we're.

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Very proud of so with the senior activity centers being closed. We had staff members who.

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In addition to contacting the seniors that we come in contact with wanting to make sure.

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They had someone to talk to and see if their needs were being met. If there were any issues.

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Or challenges that we could assist with, so, in addition to doing that, we had the opportunity.

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To work with the health department to help coordinate the registration process for the.

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Vaccines when they became available, so my staff took took the bull by the horns so to speak and.

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Had very committed staff to making return phone calls, because we know that it was very.

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Important for seniors to hear back from someone and not only that but to help them get registered.

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Not all of them had the capability or the technology to register on their own, so it set up.

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A hotline sort of an extension just for us for our department to receive calls from seniors.

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As well, they set up an email address specific for seniors so that we could help register because you.

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Had to have an email address to register for the vaccine, so those who did not have.

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An email address if they wanted us to register them, we did and we had handled over.

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4700 calls over the course of several months and registrations, at least for the first vaccine. We.

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Had over 4 000 registrations that we assisted with so that's another thing that we're very proud of.

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Being able to say that we assisted the community and getting the their vaccine registrations.

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Completed in the vaccines, so over the coming months, what we are planning to do and what we.

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Look forward to doing is to resume some of the things that we have not been able to do.

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In person, activities and events, so I mentioned that the senior activity centers have reopened so.

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We're looking forward to ramping up our activities for the seniors and programming for the seniors.

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We have a very nice pickleball court outside of the new garvey senior activity center.

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So, looking forward to having people enjoy the pickleball courts and having them use.

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The facilities not just at the new garvey center, but the northern senior activity center and the.

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Loftler senior activity center, all three of them provide a multitude and a variety of programs and.

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Services and activities for the senior adults, but in addition to the centers, we're looking forward.

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To doing a lot more outreach and re-engaging, the community programs that we have the health fair is.

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One that we're planning for the month of october and we're looking forward to inviting some of the.

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Community, it won't be as large of an event as we've had in the past, but it's something that.

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We're looking forward to re-engaging we're, also planning a veterans resource day later this year,.

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Which would be in person smaller, yet an opportunity for us to engage people in.

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Person, one-on-one and just in general, for the department we're looking forward to just becoming.

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Innovative in how we serve people and ways that we can enhance their.

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Their lives and their quality of life and looking forward to being available, as we always have been.