Lafayette County plans resource center for aging

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Lafayette County plans resource center for aging

By Mary Yeater Rathbun

The Monroe Times, September 5, 2003

DARLINGTON -- Now is the time to change the Lafayette County Commission on Aging into an aging resource center, COA director Carol Benson told the commissioners and county board chairman Thursday.

The COA offices are slated to move in October from their longtime quarters on the ground floor of the courthouse's old section to the Darlington Municipal Building's second floor.

The offices will take over space now occupied by the county human services department.

Benson said the veterans service officer and human services department's economic assistance department will be across the hall in the new location and long-term assistance will be next door. "We will be in the center of all the other services," she said.

The state Department of Health and Family Services defines an aging resource center as a centralized location for information, assistance and access to community resources for older people, their families and caregivers.

Changing the COA into an aging resource center will make it clear it is the entry point for all other services its clients might need, according to Benson. She said she discussed the idea with human services director Tom McDonald, although she did not report what his reaction had been.

Benson said a commission is a policy-making group, while a center is for resources.

She said while the name change would mean changing some of the philosophy of what the agency does, it would not change much of its work.

Benson added it is just a matter of time before the state forces the county to convert the COA into an aging resource center. She said it's the wave of the future in local aging agencies.

Gail Schwersenska of the state bureau of aging and long-term care resources said both the Federal Older Americans Act and the Wisconsin Elders Act charge local aging agencies with the responsibility of providing information and assistance to older people, their families, caregivers and the general public on the wide array of resources available.

Consequentially, she distributed Aug. 31 to all county and tribal aging agencies in the state an eight-page guide for converting local aging agencies into resource centers.

"It is the logical time to change our name, now when we are moving and so many things are changing," Benson said.

Clearly this was the reason Benson arranged a bus trip Thursday for her commissioners, the county board chairman and the press to tour the Grant County Center on Aging in Lancaster. In addition to leading the guided tour, director Gayle L. Antony explained how the Grant County agency functioned, what it did and how it did it.

The Grant County Center on Aging was a COA until 1998. Antony said the new name reflects its role as an information provider rather than a policy setter.

Lafayette County COA chairman Cletus Bainbridge requested Benson arrange another trip later in the month to Richland Center. The state helped fund the Richland County Aging Resource Center as a pilot for the state. Benson said it is the only rural aging resource center in Wisconsin.