Real
Choice Systems Change
COLORADO
Grant
Information
Name of Grantee
Department
of Health Care Policy and Financing
Title of Grant
Systems
Change for Real Choices
Type of Grant
Real
Choice Systems Change
Amount of Grant
$1,120,147
Year Original Funding
Received
2002
Contact
Information
Bill West, Project Director
303–866–2735
William.west@state.co.us
Laura Hershey, Project Administrator
1570 Grant Street
Denver, CO 80203–1818
303–866–5309
Laura.Hershey@state.co.us
Subcontractor(s)
Kaia Gallagher, Ph.D.
The Center for Research Strategies, LLC
225 E 16th Avenue, Suite 1150
Denver, CO 80203
303–860–1705
Sandra Rossi
17908 E Bellewood
Aurora, CO 80015
303–548–8754
Target
Population(s)
Persons of all ages with a disability or
long-term illness.
Goals
- Expand opportunities
for consumers to live in the community by increasing the number and
quality of community-based options.
- Expand opportunities
for consumers to live in the community by increasing consumer and provider
knowledge of community-based options.
- Improve the funding
system to better meet consumers' individual needs for services.
- Decrease the
fragmentation among State systems involved in coordinating long-term care.
Activities
- Contract with the
Center for Research Strategies to design and conduct a service capacity
survey and a sample-based, statewide needs assessment for community-based
care with an emphasis on rural areas of Colorado.
- Develop and implement
a rural seed-money grants program to develop community-based care options.
- Conduct a feasibility
study of community-based respite care and develop recommendations for
pilot programs.
- Develop an education
campaign on community-based options targeted to consumers.
- Identify best
practices in service delivery and conduct a symposium on best practices
for consumers, service providers, and State agency staff.
- Improve the long-term
care assessment process for clients with mental illness and conduct a
training session for case managers on working with this population.
- Analyze current
funding streams, review other states' funding models, and develop options
for a funding system that allows the money to follow the consumer.
- Review existing
quality assurance programs in long-term care and identify key elements of
an effective community-based quality assurance system.
- Develop policy
recommendations regarding an updated quality assurance system for
community-based services.
- Create Web-based
application forms for community-based services to be used across State
systems.
- Conduct training
sessions on Web-based application forms for case managers across State
systems.
Abstract
Colorado's overall objective is to improve and expand sustainable community-based
support services to allow children and adults of any age who have a disability
or long-term illness to live in the most integrated setting appropriate to
their individual needs. In order to meet this goal effectively, Colorado will work in partnership
with a consumer task force consisting of a diverse group of consumers,
advocates, and service providers to implement all activities. The consumer task
force will provide advice to agency staff and subcontractors on all project
goals through monthly meetings of the full task force or meetings of one of
four subgroups related to the four major goals of the project. We anticipate
that the research and policy recommendations that follow from the project
activities will build upon past and current efforts by the State to improve and
expand community-based services and will inform future efforts by the State to
meet this goal.