Leadership Changes at Hoffman Homes

C. Mitchell Snider has been named executive director of Hoffman Homes for Youth in Gettysburg, Pa. He assumed his new responsibilities on July 1.

Snider has been employed at Hoffman Homes since 1978, starting as a live-in youth care worker with his wife, Gail, just 10 days after they were married. Since that time, he has served in various capacities, including case manager, assistant director of residential services, director of finance and, most recently, associate director. He holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Slippery Rock University and a master of business administration from Mount Saint Mary’s University.

Founded in 1910, Hoffman Homes for Youth is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary.  Snider is the organization’s third executive director since 1960, following the tenures of Gerald Hagmayer (1960-1996) and George Sepic (1997-2010). Commenting on his appointment, Snider said, “I hope that I can continue to provide the stability that was demonstrated by Jerry and George. I learned a lot from both of them.”

Hoffman Homes also has announced the appointment of Michael A. Stonesifer as director of operations and Alicia Stanley as director of development.

Stonesifer, who has 30 years of administrative experience in for-profit business, will oversee safety, maintenance, grounds, custodial, food services, purchasing and technology.

Stanley has a degree in business administration with a strong focus on marketing and will develop special events, fundraising and annual giving programs.

Learn more about Hoffman Homes for Youth here.

Senior Living Think Tank Shares Ideas, Resources

When Denise Rabidoux, president and CEO of Evangelical Homes of Michigan, began looking for peers with whom to share knowledge and resources on senior living, the first place she looked was within CHHSM.

“We at Evangelical Homes of Michigan were looking around the CHHSM member ministries to determine if there was an affinity group of leaders within the organization to get together and share best practices,” she says.

Not surprisingly, a number of other senior living executives among CHHSM’s 71 corporate members had been thinking the same thing. Two of them were Steve Jaberg, CEO of Cedar Community in West Bend, Wis.; and Bob Anderson, CEO of Horizon House in Seattle, Wash.

“My role in getting it started was that way out on the West Coast I really don’t have a lot of CHHSM colleagues nearby, so frankly I’ve been only remotely involved in CHHSM during my 11 years at Horizon House,” Anderson says. “This was an attempt to connect with peers where each of us has made a commitment to generating collaboration strategies that would be really meaningful professionally and organizationally. So far this has indeed been the case.”

Through Jaberg and Anderson’s initiative, leaders of eight organizations formed what is being called the Senior Living Think Tank.

“The group is designed to help these care providers share non-financial resources and best practices to benefit all our organizations,” Jaberg says.

The group held its first meeting in Chicago in January and has met three more times since then, with the most recent meeting held Aug. 24.

So far, discussions have ranged across a variety of topics, from a guest exchange concept for residents of CHHSM-related continuing care retirement communities to an information-sharing network for senior care service providers.

“Cedar Community is uniquely positioned to leverage this network of resources,” Jaberg says. “It makes perfect sense for United Church of Christ retirement communities to work together to find ways to enhance our services to residents and others.”

For Scott R. Stevenson, president and CEO of Phoebe Ministries in Allentown, Pa., much of the think tank’s value comes from its grassroots start among individual executives. “The thought process really developed by us saying, “Isn’t there a way, since we’re all in similar industries, to partner and work together to enhance the benefits to our local communities as well as other organizations?”

Stevenson says an additional benefit is the geographic spread of the group. “I think that diversity is a key part of our current success and will be as we move forward,” he says. “Having that connection – me in Pennsylvania being able to call someone in Washington state and see how they handled challenges – is a blessing.”

For Rabidoux, who shared at the group’s August meeting her organization’s innovative “CCRC without walls” concept, joining the think tank is an opportunity to explore with peers larger visions of what CHHSM members can do collaboratively.

Among those ideas is what Jaberg refers to as the Passport to Travel program, which would allow residents at CHHSM-related retirement communities to “time-share” accommodations at other communities across the country.

“That’s something that individually our organizations would struggle with operationally, but when we get at a table and ideas are being shared and we’re gathered together as executives running faith-based organizations, the opportunities get greater,” Rabidoux says.

Jaberg and other think tank participants want to bring more members into the discussions, broaden the knowledge and resource base, and explore how ideas and solutions apply not just to senior care but all of CHHSM’s member organizations.

“I would hope that the think tank would grow to include other CEOs. And let’s get other people in the communities involved,” Stevenson says. “This could be pretty significant for CHHSM in the long run.”

The Senior Living Think Tank will hold its next meeting Nov. 7-8 in Cleveland. Interested leaders should contact CHHSM CEO Bryan Sickbert at 866-822-8224 ext. 2253.

Federal Dollars to Help Lifelink Save on Energy Costs

The federal stimulus program aims to spur spending, but at CHHSM member Lifelink, a nonprofit provider of affordable housing for seniors and disabled adults, some of those dollars are being invested to cut spending on energy costs.

Lifelink has received a $3 million federal grant to improve the “green” aspects of five of its communities, two in Florida, two in Chicago and one in Kansas City. The properties range in size from 24 to 80 apartments.

Starting in September, the funds will support an 11-month effort to upgrade windows, install new roofing, reduce storm water runoff from parking lots, buy new energy efficient appliances, convert to water-saving toilets, and add rooftop solar energy systems that will power the entire common area of two buildings.

Tim Rhodes, Lifelink’s president and CEO, says of the eventual savings from more energy efficient buildings, “That’s more money we can put into caring for seniors and disabled adults who are in need.”

Based in Oak Brook, Ill., Lifelink currently owns, operates, and provides consulting assistance to 35 affordable housing facilities located in Florida, Illinois and Missouri.

Susan Sinderson, a Lifelink vice president, says of the grant, “The exciting thing is Lifelink has always had a commitment to sustainable building, and this has given us a chance to do energy upgrades that would have taken years of saving up the funds to do it ourselves.”

Other CHHSM nonprofits are making similar innovations.

Pilgrim Place, a senior community in Claremont, Calif., expects to become the first freestanding retirement community in the U.S. to have three of its new buildings become LEED-certified, an internationally recognized green building certification system that stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., Pilgrim Manor Retirement Community sharply reduced its energy use and carbon footprint by installing 750 compact fluorescent light bulbs and developed a campuswide recycling program in conjunction with the city of Grand Rapids.

At Lifelink, Sinderson says residents welcome changes that will not only save money but also help the environment.

“They say everybody talks about this now, but it’s not new to them,” Sinderson says, “They didn’t grow up in a throwaway world.”

For instance, she notes, residents of one Lifelink property, Greencastle of Bayonet Point in Port Richey, Fla., collect their used cooking oil and donate it for use in municipal vehicles that run on the oil.

While the changes fit with old-time frugality, the grant will affect how Lifelink addresses green issues well into the future, Sinderson said.

The grant requires use of environmentally friendly chemicals and materials and 16 hours annually of staff training focused on energy savings and protecting the environment.

For Rhodes, the grant helps Lifelink take a natural next step.

“We see this as an extension of our ministry with the United Church of Christ,” Rhodes says. “We will be leaders in creating a sustainable environment for persons to participate in and educate others about the necessity and the efficacy of sustainable environments.”

CHHSM Has Friend at NASUAD

Lisa Carr, formerly public policy director at Lutheran Services of America (LSA), is now the director of public policy and government relations at the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities (NASUAD).

The mission of NADSUAD is to design, improve and sustain state systems delivering home and community-based services and supports for older adults and individuals with disabilities (www.nasua.org).

Engaged with state agencies on aging and disability, Carr’s work currently is focused on implementation of the Affordable Care Act, reauthorization of the Older Americans Act, Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) allocations, and other issues of importance to states.

Carr welcomes the opportunity to continue to be of service to her CHHSM friends engaged in advocacy in their respective states.  She can be reached at Lcarr@nasua.org; or by telephone at 202-898-2578 ext. 139.

CHHSM Health Boosts CCRC’s Savings and Peace of Mind

As epiphanies go, chances are you could count on one hand those that have taken place at corporate benefits meetings.

But that’s precisely what happened when Larry Dahl, CEO of EdenHill Communities, a continuing care retirement community in New Braunfels, Texas, attended such a meeting in St. Louis a few years ago.

There, Dahl heard representatives of the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ (PBUCC) discuss CHHSM Health, the employee health insurance plan PBUCC offers to CHHSM members.

“At the presentation, one of the things that was attractive was that the Pension Boards operate their insurance as a not-for-profit program, so I knew we had similar values,” Dahl says. “I felt that the administrative costs and the profit margins that carriers would normally be writing into the program were really being passed back to us as savings. It was clear the Pension Boards operated the program with lots of integrity.”

With its existing health insurance plan, EdenHill was facing annual increases of 12 percent. “We are fully indemnified and self-insured and were facing large increases again even though our insurance rating was good,” he says. “PBUCC indicated they could save us between 10 and 15 percent.”

When representatives of PBUCC arrived at EdenHill in 2009, they determined that they could save the community over $100,000 on the cost of its employee health insurance program.

“That was significant for us, and as important was that their historical increases were less than half of the market increases for the last five years,” he says. “The industry average is 8 to 10 percent increases, and PBUCC was showing 3 to 5 percent.”

The math was convincing. EdenHill offered its first open enrollment with CHHSM Health in January of this year. The community has seen participation increase among its 250 employees, about half of which are enrolled.

In addition to the cost-savings, Dahl says EdenHill appreciated that CHHSM Health provides a broader menu of services to employees while keeping their premiums the same. Dahl says EdenHill will explore adding dental and vision coverage, as well as the option of a 401k next year.

“The CHHSM Health program has more value-added components that we weren’t even aware of initially, including reimbursement for physicals and monitoring for chronic diseases,” he says. “It always feels better to get more than you thought you were getting.”

The business basis for switching was sound, and the transition itself, Dahl says, was a smooth one. But beyond the bottom line, he emphasizes how impressed he has been with the way the program is run.

“My impression is that the Pension Boards are as concerned about serving our employees as we are,” he says. “They understand that we have to be good stewards of our organizations, and I think they have the best interests of our employees at heart.”

To learn how CHHSM Health can benefit your organization, contact Frank Loiacono, PBUCC’s director of health plan operations, at 800-642-6543 ext. 2806 or floiacono@pbucc.org.

Organization Remakes Itself to Better Serve Children

April Petry of Elon, N.C., wants to be an opera singer. This fall, the newly minted graduate of The Elon School will enter Belmont University in Nashville to study vocal performance. Whitney Stitt, valedictorian of the Class of 2010 at the Kennedy Charter Public School in Charlotte, N.C., will soon choose which college she’ll attend as the first step toward her planned career as an anesthesiologist.

Both young women were launched toward their dreams by CHHSM ministry Elon Homes and Schools for Children. Originally created as an orphanage in Elon, the 103-year-old organization has reinvented itself in response to both a changing regulatory environment and the changing needs of its constituency. It still helps children across North Carolina who need foster care and related services, but in recent years its primary focus has shifted to education.

In 1998, the agency opened The Kennedy School, a public charter school for children in grades 6 to 12 at risk of failure in traditional public schools. The Francis Elementary division now serves younger children, and total enrollment is about 400. Whitney, who moved to Kennedy from a public middle school, had always earned good grades. “I liked it because there was more one-on-one time,” she says of the small classes at Kennedy. “The teachers have more time and they stay more on you.”

The Elon School opened in 2007 to serve high-achieving, college-bound students; enrollment at the independent, tuition-based school was 86 last year. Before starting there as a junior, April was frustrated in public school. “I felt I was wasting time and not learning anything,” she says. She graduated from The Elon School with an award for personal integrity, intellectual curiosity and social responsibility.

In a sense, the reinvention of the former Elon Homes for Children was spurred by crack cocaine. The Rev. Dr. Frederick Grosse, the agency’s CEO and president, says widespread use of that drug in the 1980s caused the numbers of abandoned, abused and neglected children to explode. In 1985, the organization bought Boys Town in Charlotte and shortly thereafter began taking in what Grosse calls “court order kids” at both their Elon and Charlotte campuses.

“In 1999 or 2000, we realized we had a growing agency and our board wanted a better grasp of what it was governing,” Grosse recalls. “We had gone very quickly from an orphanage to residential treatment.” He himself joined the organization in 1996, right around the time the Adoption Safe Family Act reordered — and to some extent dismantled — the nation’s system of care for orphans and foster children.

“We decided to sit back and ask who do we really want to serve and who can we serve,” he says.

Redefining the agency “was a very logical move,” says Dr. Barbara Tapscott, who chaired the board when it voted to open The Elon School. “We wanted to do the best we could for children given our resources and location. In Elon, when residential care was phased out, we were left with a very beautiful campus in a community that had supported us for almost 100 years. We looked at what we could do to give back, and there wasn’t an independent private school in the community.

“We were started to serve children, and we continue to do it,” she says.

April and Whitney are heading for college as a result.

New Name Doesn’t Change Crossroad’s Mission

Back in 1883 when 9-year-old Hermann Leisering was the first child through the doors of the Reformed Orphans Home of Ft. Wayne, Ind., the world and the organization itself were vastly different.

Now officially known as Crossroad Child & Family Services Inc., the organization still strives to help children in need, only through different means and in the midst of different social realities, says Kyle Zanker, Crossroad’s chief development officer.

“We are a nearly 127-year-old agency, and services have changed over the years; and with that, names have changed,” she says. Still, she notes, the aim has always been to serve children.

When founded, the Reformed Church-affiliated organization served as home for hundreds of children left in dire circumstances or those whose parents had died.

In 1942, its name became Ft. Wayne Children’s Home to reflect the move away from the orphanage model. After World War II, old-style orphanages began to disappear with the emergence of state foster care programs. The organization later expanded its services to include Woodhaven, a home for unwed mothers and their children. The home also added emotionally troubled children to those it served.

In 1963, the name changed to the Ft. Wayne Children’s Home of the United Church of Christ to reflect the 1957 merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches that created the United Church of Christ.

In 1975, the agency kept its existing name but began doing business as Crossroad.

“We could have called ourselves a treatment center at that point,” Zanker says. “The recent change reflects more accurately the programs and services we have offered for many years.”

A number of factors precipitated the legal name change earlier this year, she says.

Crossroad sought to emphasize the depth and breadth of services the agency offers to emotionally troubled children and youths: residential and secure care, outpatient services, home-based care, and an alternative to psychiatric residential treatment facilities. Today, Crossroad serves more children in non-residential services than in residential services, working more and more in communities and homes.

A secondary goal was to broaden the pool of funds available to support the work Crossroad does. Crossroad has adopted the new name as part of its tax-exempt organization filing, allowing the agency to receive funds from companies and other grantors who are forbidden in their bylaws from contributing to churches.

The ultimate goal, though, is serving children better.

“The name change helps place us in the minds of people who could use our services as so much more than a residential facility,” Zanker says. “We want them to think, ‘I have a troubled child who needs help and Crossroad has several alternatives that may meet our needs.’”

Pilgrim Manor Named Outstanding Environmental Partner

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) honored CHHSM member Pilgrim Manor Retirement Community July 28 as an “Outstanding Environmental Partner.”

The Grand Rapids, Mich., community is one of only 13 businesses statewide and one of four in West Michigan to be a 2010 honoree.

The award is given through DNRE’s Neighborhood Environmental Partners program, which urges cooperation between businesses and citizen groups to improve neighborhoods, making them cleaner and more attractive places to live and work. “When businesses and their neighbors work together to improve our environment and natural resources, everyone in the community benefits,” said DNRE Director Rebecca Humphries.

Pilgrim Manor won recognition for its “triple bottom line” business approach, which weighs environmental, social, and economic results equally as measures of success. “The overarching goal of Pilgrim Manor’s environmental stewardship efforts is to engage our community in enhancing quality of life for us all,” said George Heartwell, Pilgrim Manor’s CEO. “This award recognizes the commitment of our staff to this ideal and demonstrates what is possible when everyone is working together toward a common goal.”

Pilgrim Manor was founded in 1963 and provides a community and services dedicated to enhancing the physical, social, spiritual and emotional quality of life for older adults and their families throughout the greater Grand Rapids area.

Read more about Pilgrim Manor’s “triple bottom line” business approach here.

ADA Shines Light on Community Choice Act

It has been 20 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law on July 29, 1990. The ADA’s innumerable accomplishments, including its broad effect on public attitudes toward persons with disabilities, are to be celebrated. Yet there is still much work to be done to ensure updated laws and enforcement of existing laws guarantee equal employment, federal and state protections and access to community-based resources. Today there are approximately 2 million persons with disabilities and older Americans living in institutions and nursing homes, most without the option of community-based care.

The Community Choice Act 0f 2009 (CCA) — Senate bill S 683 / House resolution HR 1670 — is in the hands of congressional committees. The bill would amend title XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act to require state Medicaid plan coverage of community-based attendant services and supports for Medicaid-eligible older adults and individuals with disabilities. The legislation would make the current funding stream more flexible and would ensure that every person would  have a say in where and how their care and services would be provided. The legislation’s promise is to make degrading forced institutionalization a relic of the past.

The Social Security program already mandates that Medicaid offer the option of long-term healthcare services in the home or with the family of a person with disability. However, a study conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services found that only 12.5 percent of all Medicaid funds pay for home and community-based care, indicating a strong financial bias toward institutional care. To move the legislation forward,  CHHSM’s advocacy partners in the disability community hope the 20th anniversary of the ADA will be honored with calls for Congress to move the Community Choice Act of 2009 forward in the legislative process.

For more information, visit www.GovTrack.us or www.opencongress.org and key in the legislation number or title. View a video of the 1990 ADA signing ceremony here.

William Johnson is CHHSM’s vice president for member relations.

“Okay, Lord, I hear you”: Darlene Sowell and CHHSM

Darlene Sowell’s life changed one day while she was watching Rosie O’Donnell.

It’s not what you think. The show wasn’t touting a self-help strategy or the latest exercise fad. Sowell was watching Rosie when a headhunter called, and that’s what led her to health and human service ministry and the congregation of CHHSM.

That headhunter convinced her to have a job interview with Tom Vanden Berk, president and chief executive officer of UCAN, a CHHSM ministry in Chicago that works with more than 13,000 children each year. “When I met Tom,” recalls Sowell, a member of Trinity UCC in Chicago, “he talked first about mission and his commitment to kids.” She also met Zack Schrantz, then development director and now COO, who told her that UCAN was a UCC ministry.

“Okay, Lord. I hear you,” Sowell remembers saying. “I knew it was right before I left that day.”

Sowell joined UCAN in 1996 and stayed twelve years, first as vice president for human resources and then as executive vice president for human resources, facilities and housing programs. During that time, she became a CHHSM board member and Tom Vanden Berk became her mentor and friend. One day in 2008, after the two had agreed it was time for her to begin looking for a more senior position, he suggested that she interview at another CHHSM ministry as a way to build her career skills.

That skill-building exercise led Sowell to become executive director of CHHSM member Neighborhood Houses in St. Louis. Although the change meant moving 300 miles and assuming new responsibilities, she says, “My CHHSM relationships made the transition easy. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Since Sowell arrived in St. Louis, CHHSM president and CEO Bryan Sickbert has provided support and training for the Neighborhood Houses board, while her CHHSM colleagues and fellow Diakonal ministers Chris Cox, Mike Brennan and Greg Cardwell-Copenhefer are peers always ready with help and advice. Jerry Paul, president of the Deaconess Foundation in St. Louis “has been supportive personally and professionally,” she says, and the foundation”s capacity building program has increased Neighborhood Houses” ability to assess its needs and respond to changing economic and social service conditions.

The support from CHHSM”s congregation is amplified by the investment of the United Church of Christ in Sowel”s new ministry. “The church support here is unlike anything I”ve ever seen,” she says, praising especially the St. Louis Association and the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the UCC.

Using this help, Sowell hopes that Neighborhood Houses will move families and communities to self-sufficiency, foster the arts and healthy food in urban neighborhoods, and offer excellent early childhood education. “We have much of what we need in place to do wonderful things,” she says of Neighborhood Houses. “It’s where I’m supposed to be. I firmly believe that. It came together, instantly.”

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