Schenectady Office for Aging’s Laurie Bacheldor Makes the Most of Other Local Nonprofits

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. - May 1, 2013 - PRLog -- When Laurie Bacheldor took over as Manager of the Schenectady County’s office for aging, she quickly discovered there was only one way the Schenectady County Department of Senior and Long Term Care Services was going to prosper and that was through something she relied on during for 12 years in nonprofit management – collaboration.

Her first big collaboration is called “Tapping into the Arts” with Schenectady Light Opera Company and Schenectady ARC, and the outcome is the new inter generational arts education and workshop center at Schenectady Light Opera's home base on Franklin Street in Schenectady.  

“We have to start collaborating with other nonprofits in the community,” Laurie said. When she joined the Schenectady County Department of Senior and Long Term Care Services as Manager, Laurie, who worked for the local and state offices of United Way, reached out to other nonprofits in Schenectady to establish more of a “virtual senior, youth and persons with intellectual disabilities arts center.”

Senior Centers already exist throughout Schenectady County but the Tapping into the Arts collaboration will be available to seniors in downtown Schenectady as well as towns of Niskayuna, Rotterdam and Glenville and draws on the resources of more than one nonprofit.It’s actually more of a mobile senior center.

A second collaboration she has started is the Senior Center Collaborative. The senior centers in the suburbs and the Office for the Aging, located in downtown Schenectady, are now meeting quarterly and sharing resources and knowledge to better serve seniors throughout Schenectady County.

“People think a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is a collaboration, but it’s not. Collaboration requires shared services, resources, and shared staff,” Laurie said. And that’s exactly what’s happening in Schenectady. Collaborative grant applications have been written and the office is waiting word from multiple funding sources.

The Schenectady County Department of Senior and Long Term Care Services is Schenectady’s Area Agency on Aging (AAA). As with a few of the state’s AAA’s, they are a “merged” unit, meaning she supervises caseworkers for long term care and caseworkers for adult protective services. “It makes for a smooth transition for seniors who have safety issues. All the caseworkers and nurses can sit down and come up with one plan," Laurie said.

“Laurie is part of a new wave of Office for Aging directors/commissioners who came on board during the past 18 months,” said Laura Cameron, Executive Director of the NYS Association of Area Agencies on Aging, an umbrella organization for New York’s local offices for the aging and aging network organizations. “We are featuring these individuals in a series of articles to introduce them to the aging services network and learn a bit about them and the agencies they lead.”

As with some other aging offices around the state (there are 59 mostly county-based), there is a waiting list in Schenectady County for the Area Agency on Aging Expanded In Home Services for the Elderly Program (EISEP), which is in home personal care assistance. The two case workers are serving 78 and have a waiting list of over 20 people. “If we could increase the EISEP allocation, we could save New York State so much money,” Laurie said.      

Right now, many home-care agencies aren’t even interested in the Medicare contract with EISPEP because the rates don’t even match the Medicaid rates, Laurie said.

And that brings us back to where we started: collaboration.

“I’m moving to collaborative approaches,” Laurie said.