The Minnesota Board on Aging is celebrating its
60th year with the theme “Blazing Trails in Aging,” offering a photo booth with
western props along with a wide array of information and assistance at the Minnesota
State Fair this year. First established in 1956, the Minnesota Board on Aging
is a pioneer in the field of aging policy, information and assistance. It works
closely with its Area Agencies on Aging, which are located throughout the
state, to provide services that older adults need and to advocate on their
behalf. As always, staff of Senior LinkAge Line, the board’s flagship
information and assistance service, will be ready to answer questions about
Medicare, drug plans, aging in place, preventing senior fraud and abuse and
other topics of interest to older adults and their family members. More
information is in a news release about
the Board on Aging State Fair booth.
The Department of Human Services recently certified
13 providers to deliver behavioral health home services to better coordinate
care for people with serious mental illness. The behavioral health home model
offers a coordinated approach to health care, serving the whole person across
all areas of health and wellness, from primary care to social services. Another
eight providers are finalizing their certification process to become behavioral
health homes. As of July 1, behavioral health home services are covered by
Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s Medicaid program. More information is in a news release about
behavioral health homes.
Minnesota’s Olmstead Plan now has a home
on the DHS website. Through the Olmstead Plan, Minnesota is paving the way
for people with disabilities to express their preferences for how they choose
to live, learn, work and engage in community life, while receiving the supports
they need to be safe and successful. DHS is working closely with community
partners and other state agencies to make Minnesota a leader in supporting
choice for people with disabilities. The “Minnesota Department of Human
Services and the Olmstead Plan” page contains DHS-specific news, information
and materials about the plan, including successes, fact sheets and other
materials of interest to a wide range of audiences. More information is in a news story about
the Olmstead web page.
Child support is a lifeline for more than 250,000
Minnesota children and their families, helping provide the financial support
they need to succeed. Gov. Mark Dayton declared August
Child Support Awareness Month in Minnesota to highlight the importance of
child support and recent changes to make the system work better for families. Minnesota
has long been a leader in child support enforcement, ranking fifth among states
for the percentage of current child support collected each month and third for
payments of overdue support. The state and Minnesota counties, which jointly
administer the child support system, collected and disbursed $603 million in
fiscal year 2015. More information is in a news release about
Child Support Awareness Month.
For the first time, the Minnesota Department of
Human Services joined Farmfest Aug. 2 to 4 in Redwood Falls to share
information about how it is working to grow healthy people, stable families and
strong communities across the state. The Department of Human Services booth was
located in the agriculture tent, where staff and local volunteers from the
Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging were on hand to offer resources about
services for seniors, health care, nutrition assistance, adoption and more.
More information is in a news release about
Farmfest.
Non-English speaking Minnesotans now have a new
resource to find the critical assistance they may need. A video titled “What is
Senior LinkAge Line?” has been created in Hmong, Somali, Spanish and Russian in
addition to English to inform Minnesota’s older non-English speaking residents
and their families about the service. The videos were created in partnership
with the Minnesota Board on Aging and ECHO, a nonprofit organization that helps
bridge the communications gap for Minnesota immigrants and refugees. More
information is in a news release about
the video campaign.
The Minnesota Lynx donated 100 tickets to foster
families to attend the Sept. 2 game at Target Center in Minneapolis.
Coordinated by Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington counties and DHS, this is one of
many annual events supporting foster families and celebrating their commitment
to children. In 2015, foster families cared for almost 12,200 children in
Minnesota. Last year, the number of children in our-of-home placements
increased by approximately 9 percent from 2014, due primarily to children
remaining in foster care longer and more children being placed in foster care.
With the increase, many county and tribal agencies have a shortage of family
foster homes and need additional licensed families to care for children.
Information on becoming
a foster parent is available on the department’s website.
Rachele King, Refugee Resettlement program manager,
recently became a founding member of the American Public Human
Services Association’s Joint Task Force on Refugees and Unaccompanied
Children. Along with human services officials from Colorado and Illinois, King
introduced this task force to foster communication about refugee services
between the state and federal level. She will evaluate the influence of an
influx of refugees and unaccompanied children on human services departments,
render policy solutions and aid departments in supporting these populations.
More information on the Minnesota
Resettlement Programs Office is available on the department’s website.
Fact sheets about DHS programs were updated during August:
Questions and comments about navigation and technical issues should be emailed to the DHS webmaster. Send news story ideas for the public website to DHS Communications.
For accessible formats of this publication or assistance
with additional equal access to human services, write to DHS.Communications@state.mn.us,
call 651-431-2911, or use your preferred relay service.
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