Person-Centered Care Training, May 16, 2014

A FREE training event that will offer valuable and timely information about:  *LifeLong Links Network Statewide Expansion  *Preadmission Screening and Resident Review (PASRR) in Iowa  *Magellan Health Services—SeniorConnect and Integrated Health Homes (IHH)  *The role of the Long Term Care Ombudsman

The Child Welfare Decategorization Program, August 2010

This Handbook is designed to outline the purposes, goals, structure, and operational procedures for Iowa’s Child Welfare Decategorization Program. The Handbook incorporates experiences gained since the inception of Decategorization in 1987. As with any initiative that began on a pilot basis, Decategorization has been an evolving program in which parameters and procedures have undergone modifications to achieve the desired results. The Handbook serves as a guidebook for implementation and operation of Decategorization and a means of communicating information on program parameters and procedures. Purposes of Decategorization of child welfare and juvenile justice funding is an initiative intended to establish systems of delivering human services based upon client needs to replace systems based upon a multitude of categorical funding programs and funding sources, each with different service definitions and eligibility requirements. Decategorization is designed to redirect child welfare and juvenile justice funding to services which are more preventive, family centered, and community-based in order to reduce use of restrictive approaches that rely on institutional, out-of home, and out-of-community care.

Sexual Expression among Long-Term Care Residents, September 27, 2013

Sexuality among the aging traditionally been overlooked. It is gaining recognition as an important factor in lives of older adults and part of the aging process. Preserving residents' right to freedom of sexual expression in the long-term care environment is important part of the resident-centered care & residents' rights

Long-Term Care: An Emotional Journey for Family Members, May 18, 2015

Explanation of moving a loved one to a long-term care facility. Fact sheet designed to discuss some of the common emotions a caregiver may experience when moving a loved one into a long-term care facility & provide some suggestions for dealing with those feelings

Long Term Care: an Emotional Journey for Family Members, January 16, 2013

Many times, moving a loved one into a long-term care facility is a true act of love and unselfishness. If the caregiver and the care recipient cannot leave the house, you have both become very isolated. Imagine mom being able to go outside her door to find someone to talk with. There are activities, meals to be shared with friends, and a barrier free area where she can roam.

Health Care and Public Transit; Your Ticket to Health Care Access, 2005

Transportation is an important health care issue. The majority of the population here in Iowa have ready access and typically use private automobiles to access health care and other community services. There is also a significant segment of the population that either does not have access to a personal automobile or is not currently capable of driving. This can potentially limit their access to health care, but it has greater health implications because it can also limit access to nutrition and other community services, as well as involvement in social activities. For people unable to drive themselves, the alternatives generally include reliance on family, friends, volunteer groups, and public transit. Many choose transit because it gives them a degree of independence. Public transit is often used to supplement other options even when they are available. It becomes critical in circumstances where the other options don’t exist. In many cases there may be no family available or they may not always be able to get off work when travel needs arise during the workday. Friends may be in similar circumstances and volunteer groups may be either unavailable or overwhelmed. The fact that many patients depend on public transit to get to and from health care appointments makes it beneficial for health care professionals to get to know more about public transit and how it operates here in Iowa.

Iowa Department on Aging, Office of the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman, Annual Report 2012 (Federal Fiscal Year October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011), January 2012.

The State Long-Term Care Ombudsman program (SLTCOP)operates as a unit within the Iowa Department on Aging. Duties of all long-term care ombudsmen are mandated by the Older Americans Act. This office serves people living in nursing, skilled nursing, residential care, and nursing facilities in hospitals as well as elder group homes and assisted living facilities. In order to carry out all of the mandates of the Older Americans Act this office recommends to establish a fully functioning volunteer ombudsman program that meets the criteria set forth in the Federal Older Americans Act as well as to strengthen family & resident councils, and to increase collaboration between the SLTCOP and Iowa’s Aging Network.

Title IV-B Child and Family Service Plan 2010 Annual Progress and Service Report, June 2010

In June 2009, the Iowa Department of Human Service (IDHS) developed a Child and Family Service Plan (CFSP) that sets forth the Department’s vision and goals to be accomplished for FYs 2010 through 2014. The purpose of the CFSP is to strengthen the States’ overall child welfare system and to facilitate the state’s integration of the programs that serve children and families into a comprehensive and continuum array of child welfare services from prevention and protection through permanency. These programs include title IV-B, subparts 1 and 2 of the Act, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP), and the Education and Training Vouchers (ETV) programs for older and/or former foster care youth. IDHS administers the IV-B, CAPTA, CFCIP and the ETV programs described within Iowa’s CFSP. Iowa’s Annual Progress and Services Report (APSR) provides an annual update on the progress made toward accomplishing the goals and objectives identified in the state’s CFSP for the previous fiscal year (2009-2010) and the planned activities for next fiscal year (2010-2011) .

Iowa's Barriers to Prenatal Care Project, August 2013

The findings in this summary are based on the Iowa Barriers to Prenatal Care project. Ongoing since 1991, the purpose of this project is to obtain brief, accurate information about women delivering babies in Iowa hospitals. Specifically, the project seeks to learn about women’s experiences getting prenatal or delivery care during their current pregnancy. Other information is included which may be pertinent to health planners or those concerned with the systematic development of health care services. This project is a cooperative venture of all of Iowa’s maternity hospitals, the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research, and the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the first three years of this project. The current funding is provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Director is Dr. Mary Losch, University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research. The Coordinator for the project is Rodney Muilenburg. The questionnaire is distributed to nearly ninety maternity hospitals across the state of Iowa. Nursing staff or those responsible for obtaining birth certificate information in the obstetrics unit are responsible for approaching all birth mothers prior to dismissal and requesting their participation in the study. The questionnaire takes approximately ten minutes to complete. Completed questionnaires are returned to the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research for data entry and analysis. Returns are made monthly, weekly, or biweekly depending on the number of births per week in a given hospital. Except in the case of a mother who is too ill to complete the questionnaire, all mothers are eligible to be recruited for participation. The present yearly report includes an analysis of large Iowa cities, African American mothers, and a trend analysis of the last ten years. Also presented in this report is a frequency analysis of all variables included in the 2012 questionnaire. Unless otherwise noted, all entries reflect percentages. Please note that because percentages were rounded, total values may not equal 100%. Data presented are based upon 2012 questionnaires received to date (n = 23,674). All analyses reflect unweighted percentages of those responding.

Issue review : projected impact of elimination of the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

The federal Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 ended the Federal Family Education Loan Program, or FFELP, and no new FFELP loans will be issued after June 30, 2010. The Iowa College Student Aid Commission received approximately 14 million dollars of its 14.7 million dollar fiscal year 2010 administrative budget from the various fees associated with the FFELP program and services. With the cessation of FFELP loans, the commission project's revenues will decline, as the currently existing FFELP loans are paid off, beginning with a 2.7 million dollar decline in fiscal year 2011. This issue review examines the prison system fiscal year 2010 budget, including receipts and expenditures, average annual costs, personnel and inmate assaults.

Iowa's Maternal Health, Child Health and Family Planning Business Plan, January 2014

• Promotes access to regular preventive health care services for children through contracts with 22 agencies covering all of Iowa’s 99 counties • Fosters age appropriate growth and development by promoting early identification of children’s health concerns and referral for diagnosis and treatment • Assists families to establish medical and dental homes for their children • Targets low income families – children on Medicaid and those who are uninsured and under insured • Strives to meet family needs and remove barriers to accessing health care by linking families to community-based, culturally appropriate services

Family Support Subsidy and Children at Home Program SFY 2015, October 30, 2015

The Family Support Subsidy (FSS) program provides a monthly payment to help families with the cost of raising a child with a developmental disability. Parents of children with disabilities were very active in getting state and federal policy makers to look at how they could divert some of the funds going to institutional care. Families with severely disabled children wanted to raise their children at home but were met with a lot of resistance and policy barriers when they tried to get home-based support.

Iowa's Barriers to Prenatal Care Project, July 2015

The findings in this summary are based on the Iowa Barriers to Prenatal Care project. Ongoing since 1991, the purpose of this project is to obtain brief, accurate information about women delivering babies in Iowa hospitals. Specifically, the project seeks to learn about women’s experiences getting prenatal or delivery care during their current pregnancy. Other information is included which may be pertinent to health planners or those concerned with the systematic development of health care services. This project is a cooperative venture of all of Iowa’s maternity hospitals, the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research, and the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the first three years of this project. The current funding is provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Director is Dr. Mary Losch, University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research. The Coordinator for the project is Rodney Muilenburg. The questionnaire is distributed to nearly ninety maternity hospitals across the state of Iowa. Nursing staff or those responsible for obtaining birth certificate information in the obstetrics unit are responsible for approaching all birth mothers prior to dismissal to request their participation in the study. The questionnaire takes approximately ten minutes to complete. Completed questionnaires are returned to the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research for data entry and analysis. Returns are made monthly, weekly, or biweekly depending on the number of births per week in a given hospital. Except in the case of a mother who is too ill to complete the questionnaire, all mothers are eligible to be recruited for participation. The present yearly report includes an analysis of large Iowa cities, frequencies by income, and a trend analysis of the last ten years. Also presented in this report is a frequency analysis of all variables included in the 2014 questionnaire. Unless otherwise noted, all entries reflect percentages. Please note that, because percentages were rounded, total values may not equal 100%. Data presented are based upon 2014 questionnaires received to date (n = 24,696). All analyses reflect unweighted percentages of those responding.

Iowa's Barriers to Prenatal Care Project: 2-14 Data Summary, July 2015

The findings in this summary are based on the Iowa Barriers to Prenatal Care project. Ongoing since 1991, the purpose of this project is to obtain brief, accurate information about women delivering babies in Iowa hospitals. Specifically, the project seeks to learn about women’s experiences getting prenatal or delivery care during their current pregnancy. Other information is included which may be pertinent to health planners or those concerned with the systematic development of health care services. This project is a cooperative venture of all of Iowa’s maternity hospitals, the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research, and the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the first three years of this project. The current funding is provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health. The Director is Dr. Mary Losch, University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research. The Coordinator for the project is Rodney Muilenburg. The questionnaire is distributed to nearly ninety maternity hospitals across the state of Iowa. Nursing staff or those responsible for obtaining birth certificate information in the obstetrics unit are responsible for approaching all birth mothers prior to dismissal and requesting their participation in the study. The questionnaire takes approximately ten minutes to complete. Completed questionnaires are returned to the University of Northern Iowa Center for Social and Behavioral Research for data entry and analysis. Returns are made monthly, weekly, or biweekly depending on the number of births per week in a given hospital. Except in the case of a mother who is too ill to complete the questionnaire, all mothers are eligible to be recruited for participation. The present yearly report includes an analysis of large Iowa cities, African American mothers, and a trend analysis of the last ten years. Also presented in this report is a frequency analysis of all variables included in the 2012 questionnaire. Unless otherwise noted, all entries reflect percentages. Please note that because percentages were rounded, total values may not equal 100%. Data presented are based upon 2012 questionnaires received to date (n = 23,674). All analyses reflect unweighted percentages of those responding.