Thank you, aging-service board and advisory council members, for your service to older Americans and all those who care for them – and for your interest in coming to these pages. You are working in the field of aging at a most exciting, critical time – a time when the older population is rapidly expanding; a time when Americans are increasingly asking for home- and community-based alternatives to traditional nursing home care; and a time when government is trying harder to provide those alternatives.
In short, you are working on behalf of our country’s older citizens in a new era. Recent amendments to the Older Americans Act will allow state and area agencies more flexibility in creating innovative programs and services. The amendments also offer more latitude (and encouragement) in coordinating and collaborating with other health and social service agencies to help older Americans live as independently as possible for as long as possible in the domain of overwhelming choice – their own homes. The opportunities have never loomed larger. Nor have the responsibilities and rewards.
We hope to assist you in your role as a board director (aka trustee) or advisory council member for state and/or area agencies on aging by including in this manual:
Again, on behalf of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) – and all the area agencies on aging and Title VI programs the association represents – we extend our abiding appreciation to each and every board and council member giving so unselfishly of himself and herself to help make all of America not just a better place to grow up, but a better place to grow old.