Message from the CEO

Posted on:

Mar 27, 2020

Dear Community Partners,
For our weekly check in, we wish to update you this third week on the activities and changes at SeniorCare. Everything stated in my March 18 message remains applicable to this week’s status. I have included our legislators on this email and will continue to include them on our weekly communication.

Nutrition:

  1. Change in Meals Deliveries: As of last Friday, we have instituted social distancing delivery of meals, whereby our drivers are knocking on doors or ringing doorbells, hanging the meals in a bag on doorknobs, and stepping back while at least having visual and/or verbal contact with the person. The inherent safety check remains important in addition to the meal delivery.
  2. Changes in Meals Schedule: We may modify our delivery system moving forward. For example, yesterday (Thursday) we provided our meal recipients with meals for yesterday and today with no delivery today. We utilized Robocalls to all of our recipients yesterday with a reminder today of this change.
  3. Robocalls: All of our meals on wheels recipients have been included in the Robocalls, including applicable nutrition staff. The caller ID for such calls lists “SeniorCare” as the caller.
  4. Grab & Go Locations: The Rose Baker Senior Center in Gloucester and the Beverly Senior Center continue to provide grab and go meals although the use remains low. If folks are interested, they should check our website or call us.
  5. COAs: We are having weekly teleconferences with your Councils on Aging. One of the projects is to identify food resources in our area. While very changeable, please refer to these two links which you may want to get out through you own social media platforms or otherwise.
  6. North Shore Food Resources Guide (updated regularly)
    Full guide: https://bit.ly/NorthShoreResources
    Single page (front & back): https://bit.ly/NorthShoreResources1pg

Getting the word out:

  1. Today, I was interviewed by 1623 Studios in Gloucester, most of which had to do with home delivered meals. The interview link will be on our website and the recording will be shared our local community access stations. You can also go straight to 1623 Studios.
  2. Most of our home care clients who receive in-home services have been contacted with the remainder being contacted by next week’s end.
  3. Is anything that you are sending out through social media that you would want us to also share. 

Beverly Office:

  1. Our office at the Cummings Center will be closed until further notice. Our Gloucester office is minimally staffed as over 95% of staff are working from home remotely as written in our Continuity of Operations Plan.

Home Care Care Managers, RNs and other HC staff

  1. Most of our home care clients who receive in home care have been contacted with the remainder by the end of next week.
  2. We have seen an increase in volunteers coming forward, which is quite nice to see. We encourage more if folks are interested. It does take time to process a new volunteer relative to CORI checks, motor vehicle checks and training.
  3. Our Care Managers and others are doing more frequent wellness check phone calls and especially for our highest risk consumers.
  4. We are seeing a statewide trend of cancellation of home care services. In such cases, we are offering grocery shopping or laundry service, where entrance to the home is not necessary.

Volunteer Services

  1. We have seen an increase in volunteer applications, which is great to see. It does take a bit of time to process each volunteer in terms of doing CORIs, motor vehicle checks, and training. We are accepting volunteers.

PPE

  1. Like everyone else, we are all experiencing the reduction in the availability of PPE. We are prioritizing our meals on wheels drivers, protective services staff who may in an emergency situation need to go out, in some cases our money management program volunteers, and if absolutely necessary our Care Managers and RNs.

Key Stakeholders:

  1. We have had teleconferences with your local Housing Authorities this week to update each other and keep the lines of communication open.
  2. We have also had teleconferences with our in-home contracted providers, Senior Care Options Plans, and multiple teleconferences per week with the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, MA Health, and our MA HC Association.

I apologize for the lengthy message but think it’s important to communicate changes to you on a weekly basis given that we are working with the most vulnerable populations and things change sometimes daily.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at SeniorCare at 978-281-1750

Be safe and thank you for all you do.

Sincerely,
Scott Trenti
CEO, SeniorCare Inc.

SeniorCare Inc., Gloucester, MA USA, 2022
SeniorCare Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All contributions made to the agency are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. SeniorCare Inc. and its programs are funded in whole, or in part, by contracts with/or grants from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs and other funding sources.