As we approach the end of another year, we are taking a moment to pause and reflect on the past 12 months. As in the world around us, 2022 at Archstone Foundation has been a time of transition and forging new paths – together with you, our trusted partners – toward improving the health and wellbeing of older Californians and their caregivers. We continue to recognize there is much work to be done to advance a more just and equitable care system, and we view addressing racial health equity and advancing diversity as central to our work.
During our third holiday season spent with COVID, we are also facing a tripledemic: COVID, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza. This means celebrating could be especially difficult for families with loved ones who are particularly vulnerable – older adults, young children, and persons who are immunocompromised. We hope you can find meaningful ways to continue to enjoy and be together with your family, friends, and loved ones while taking needed precautions.
On our justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion journey, we have continued to listen, learn, and refine our internal and external operations. Our Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee of Board and staff members has adopted the D5 definition of diversity, equity and inclusion, and we’ve undertaken meaningful discussions as Board and staff about how to weave these principles throughout our grantmaking portfolio and approach all of our work through an equity lens. We know there is still critical work to be done in this area.
Under the leadership of President and CEO Christopher A. Langston, this year also saw big changes in the organization, and we enjoyed celebrating these transitions with the community and our partners. Longtime Directors Rocky Suares, Peter Szutu, and Amye Leong rotated off the board after a combined service of almost 40 years, and we welcomed their successors in June. Mary Ellen Kullman, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Board Secretary, retired in June after 27 years with the Foundation. After a successful internship with us, we welcomed Ryan DoyLoo as a new program associate in July. And my dedicated and thoughtful colleagues Tanisha Davis, Connie Peña, and I all stepped into new roles during the year.
We cannot do our work alone. Achieving a vision where social services and health care are connected and operate seamlessly will take the continued, concentrated efforts of many partners, grantees, and colleagues. One step we’ve taken this past year has been to collaborate with RAND Corporation to begin to create a consolidated, open-access data dashboard to help providers, policymakers, and stakeholders make smarter, evidence-based decisions with an emphasis on reducing health disparities.
We hope you continue with us on this journey. In our work, we will continue to learn, listen, and improve our approaches and practices at every opportunity.
We are filled with deep gratitude for the work you and your teams are doing to improve care for older persons, reduce health disparities, and create systems that will make quality care a reality for all.
Please read along as we recount our Top 10 blog posts of 2022:
- Welcoming Four New Members to Our Board, by Heather M. Young and Christopher Langston, August 15, 2022
We are honored to have welcomed four new members toArchstone Foundation’s Board of Directors. They maintain the outstanding diversity of our board in their skills, background, and expertise. We welcomed Jean Accius, PhD, whose expertise is driving transformational change, innovation and results; Katherine Kim, PhD, who has expertise in health information technology, consumer issues, and federal health information technology policy; Jürgen Unützer, MD, who is an expert in medical practice change, integration of healthcare and social services, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services innovations, and value-based payment processes; and Ramiro Zúñiga, MD, MBA, who has expertise in clinical care for low-income populations in California, managed care, California’s transforming Medi-Cal program, and national trends in Medicaid transformation. We are proud of the diversity, breadth, and depth of experience that our Board members bring to their role and have already seen their dedication, openness, and willingness to create strong culture of learning and partnership. - Equity in Action: An Interview with Tanisha Davis and Jasmine Lacsamana, by Brett Anderson, July 18, 2022
Vice President of Grant Operations and Planning Tanisha Davis and Program Officer Jasmine Lacsamana have been developing their careers through learning and leadership programs. They recently detailed these career development experiences with spring program intern Brett Anderson. They discussed important topics including transparency, data collection, current issues in the field, problem-solving in the work environment, equity, principles of integrity, vision, personal responsibility, and commitment to the community. They also shared their experience as part of the Archstone Foundation Board and staff JEDI committee, and the Foundation’s efforts to weave equity throughout all of our grantmaking. Together, we share an organizational commitment to learning, listening, and improving as a team. - Reflections on 27 Years, by Mary Ellen Kullman, June 28, 2022
After nearly three decades, Mary Ellen retired from Archstone Foundation at the end of June, and she took the occasion to share some thoughts and reflections. Since joining the organization in 1995 as the Foundation’s first program officer, her reflections tell the story of the Foundation’s history – from the Board’s decision to focus solely on aging beginning in 1995 to our legacy work in fall prevention, elder abuse and neglect, and end of life, to her important leadership working with a collaborative of eight foundations to support California’s development and implementation of a Master Plan for Aging. We are filled with gratitude for her leadership, dedication, and commitment to older Californians and their caregivers, and we congratulate her on being the 2022 recipient of the American Public Health Association’s Aging and Public Health Section Steven P. Wallace Lifetime Achievement Award. - Capacity Building Grant Program Updated with Your Feedback, by Laura Rath, January 21, 2022
In fall 2021, we commissioned an independent review of our capacity building grant program, launched in 2020. The constructive feedback we received from past grant applicants and recipients informed our two subsequent requests for proposals, resulting in the grants awarded in 2022. What did we learn? So far, our capacity building grants have succeeded in strengthening organizational infrastructure and effectiveness through relatively small investments. In addition, the support of Catchafire volunteers offered to both grantees and declined applicants has been viewed as positive and beneficial by participants in the partnership. We also made several important changes to the program, including shortening the letter of inquiry, streamlining funding categories, and moving to an annual cycle that begins with requests for proposals each July. - Partners in Care Foundation and LAVC Launch New CHW Training, by Jolene Fassbinder, February 8, 2022
We believe community health workers occupy an increasingly important but often underappreciated position in today’s health care system. And efforts to get more people ready to occupy these jobs aligns with Archstone Foundation’s strategic priorities, the Three Ts of Teams, Training and Technology. That is why the Foundation funded a training program to produce more community health workers across California. A collaboration of Partners in Care Foundation and Los Angeles Valley College, the program launched with a 48-hour pilot workshop in January and is currently offering the course to a new cohort of applicants. Students, older adults, and those seeking a second career in health and social services are encouraged to use Partners in Care’s webpage to learn more about the project and to register for the course. - Adult Day Services Have an Important Role to Play in Supporting Family Caregivers, by Jasmine Lacsamana, April 12, 2022
The role of family caregivers is vital to healthcare delivery. They perform critical daily tasks such as managing medications and coordinating health care and long-term services and support. Because of their work, many older adults who would have been in a nursing home years ago get to remain at home. In 2018, Archstone Foundation launched an initiative to support family caregivers of older adults through adult day services programs across California, and the resulting report and executive summary about this project make clear that increased caregiver engagement within ADS locations not only improves the quality of care for older adults but also helps relieve caregivers’ mental and physical stress. - Inside Two Recent Efforts to Bolster Technological Innovations That Further Our Mission, by Ryan DoyLoo, November 15, 2022
Because of its capacity to seamlessly integrate healthcare and social services, Archstone Foundation believes technology is key to improving the health of older adults at scale. Technology can enable better health care, reduce racial and ethnic disparities, and improve health and well-being. We also have a firm belief in partnerships and learning from others. These two beliefs came together this fall, when Archstone Foundation led a technology-focused session with nationally recognized leaders in the field at the Grantmakers in Aging annual conference. Our beliefs have also converged in our decision to work with a consultant to assess the range of opportunities for funding technological innovations that could improve the health and well-being of older Californians and their caregivers. The resulting report reviewing the data exchange landscape in California and resulting funding recommendations will be released early next year. - LeadingAge California: Leading the Way Statewide for DEI in Aging Services, by Jolene Fassbinder, October 11, 2022
Thousands of organizations nationwide, both nonprofits and for-profits, are undertaking initiatives that seek to understand what diversity, equity, and inclusion means for them and those they serve — Archstone Foundation included. LeadingAge California believes that ensuring older adults age in safe and supportive environments — regardless of race, ethnicity, immigration status, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation — requires access to the tools, resources, organizational leadership, and expertise to do this work in a thoughtful and impactful way. With support from Archstone Foundation, California Health Care Foundation, and TELACU (formerly East Los Angeles Credit Union), LeadingAge California published a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Roadmap, which serves as a strategic blueprint for providers and business partners in housing, care, and services for older adults, with achievable goals and resources to develop, refine, and sustain effective DEI efforts in their respective settings. - A tie, with two from our series: “Looking Back, Looking Forward: Our Legacy in Improving End-of-Life and Serious Illness Care”
Reflecting on End-of-Life and Spirituality in Palliative Care: An Interview with Joseph F. Prevratil, by Ryan DoyLoo, March 28, 2022
Ryan DoyLoo interviewed Joseph F. Prevratil, JD, who retired in 2019 after nearly two-dozen years as the Foundation’s founding president and CEO, about the Foundation’s three decades of work in improving palliative care and spirituality at the end-of-life. Together they discussed the most significant changes that have occurred in the field, the lasting benefits of the Foundation’s investments in increasing quality of palliative care education and training; and intersections between the Foundation’s current strategic plan and its past work in end-of-life and palliative care.
How Cultural Humility & Sensitivity Improves Serious Illness Care, by Judy Thomas, May 2, 2022
Judy Thomas, retired CEO of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, which serves as the home of the palliative care and serious illness movement in California, shared her insights about how culture plays an important part in how we experience serious illness and the end of life. It influences how we think about, approach, address, respond to, and process what is unfamiliar terrain for most of us. She described what of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California learned from thought leaders on culture about the “diversity of diversity.” They gave the Coalition a way to think about culture that is inclusive and respectful, and expanded its definition of culture to go beyond race and ethnicity and include such factors as religion and spirituality, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, socio-economic status, geographic identification. It’s this diversity of diversity that is often referred to as “intersectionality.” She shared several ways that serious illness or end of life may be influenced by a person’s culture. - New Video Highlights the Virtue of Collaboration in Our Work, by Laura Rath, September 19, 2022
Archstone Foundation CEO Christopher Langston, SAAHAS for Cause founder Payal Sawhney, and I sat down this summer with Guenevere Crum, director of community engagement at Catchafire, to kick off Catchafire’s Wednesday Leadership Series: Philanthropy in Health. This conversation highlighted how Archstone Foundation, Catchafire, and nonprofit organizations like SAAHAS for Cause have worked together toward the goal of improving the health and well-being of older adults. Catchafire is a resource the Foundation offers grantees and applicants to build organizational capacity. Catchafire is a social enterprise and nonprofit that matches professionals who want to donate their time with nonprofits who need their skills. SAAHAS for Cause has successfully used this service on several projects, including an employee handbook review and creation of an education campaign to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the South Asian community it serves.
On behalf of the Board and staff of Archstone Foundation, we wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. Please continue to reach out to us to share your thoughts and ideas for improving the lives of older adults and their caregivers. We also invite you to bookmark our Point of View blog and check back often in 2023 for updates about how our Three T grantmaking strategies are unfolding, as well as for thought-provoking discussions of progress toward improving the health and well-being of older Californians and their caregivers.
