Select Board Favors Adult Day Program; Would Need A Home, And Grant Funding

CHATHAM – While there are many unknowns about a supportive adult day care program for Chatham — a suitable location, adequate staff, and ideally, start-up funds from a state grant — one thing is certain, town officials say. There is a growing need for programming for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, to help both those individuals and the loved ones who care for them.

Currently, 11 Chatham residents attend an adult day program hosted by the Orleans Council on Aging. While the COA building project turned back by voters last year would have included space for an adult day program, the need was identified long ago, former COA board member Barbara Segal told the select board recently. In 2011, architects studied ways the current senior center could be expanded to accommodate the program, and proposed a 2,418-square-foot addition and renovation that would have cost less than $1.1 million. The proposal was never put before voters because the select board at the time had prioritized other capital projects like a new fire station.

Segal has been in talks with the pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Chatham, who has offered to rent the town adequate space for a program at a rate of $200 per day. The church feels that facilitating a supportive day program would be consistent with its mission of supporting the community, Segal said.

“I realize it would be preferable to house senior day at our current facility, but where?” she asked the select board. “We all know that the existing senior center does not have enough room to provide space for all the programs presently offered, let alone for expansion of programs in the future.”

Community Services Director Leah LaCross has applied for a $273,682 grant that could help the town start its own adult day program — but at the existing senior center. She said the center for active living is seeing a dramatic increase in dementia-related client issues, and the need for an adult day program is real and growing.

Following the lead of the council on aging board, the select board voiced its support for the concept of an adult day offering in Chatham.

“I view this as sort of a pilot program,” select board member Dean Nicastro said. Ideally, the town will win the state grant which would allow the program to operate for a year. “If it’s successful, the COA board can come to the town manager and ask to incorporate this, long-term, in the budget, or by a separate article to town meeting,” he said.

“I’m thrilled,” board member Michael Schell said. “This has got all the elements of something we were trying to do in a new facility.” But Schell said it would be less disruptive to senior center operations to simply hold the program at the church.

“I really feel strongly that it should be under our own roof,” LaCross said. Staffing the program would require three people: two part-time workers and one full-time employee, and there needs to be additional staff support in case of an emergency or trouble with a client. “You can have the sweetest person in the world and they can become agitated, they can become combative,” she said. “When you don’t have leadership on site, that can become a very scary proposition,” she added. Having ample staffing is needed just so that staff can take bathroom breaks. “That’s the reality of this, because you cannot turn your back,” she said.

To apply for the state grant, the town had to partner with a community that already provides adult day services, LaCross said. Chatham is being sponsored by Dennis, which has a very successful program. The director there, and at other similar programs, “highly recommend that it not be offsite at any time. I also spoke with legal counsel, who shared my concerns as far as liability and not having someone onsite full-time,” she said.

LaCross said she is hopeful that the town will receive the grant, and added that she has about a 96 percent success rate in writing grants. But she did not include funds for the new staffing in the center for active living budget as a contingency, because she hadn’t planned on starting a program this year until she learned of the grant opportunity.

“We felt we couldn’t pass that up,” she said.

Select board member Jeffrey Dykens proposed having a placeholder article on the annual town meeting warrant that would seek $247,000, only in the event that the town did not receive the state grant.

“That’s a plan B,” he said.

The select board unanimously voted to endorse the concept of an adult day pilot program, without specifying the funding mechanism or the program location. LaCross said the town could hear soon whether its grant application was successful.