QUESTION
How are smaller immigrant-serving senior centers impacted by case management contract consolidation, and what steps are being taken to improve inclusivity and reduce subcontracting for culturally sensitive meals?
1:23:02
·
4 min
The New York City Department for the Aging details changes to enhance inclusivity in case management contracts and meal delivery, focusing on supporting smaller immigrant-serving centers and reducing subcontractors.
- New case management providers are starting, and an RFP for home-delivered meals aims to reduce subcontracting.
- Efforts include encouraging on-site cooking and supporting updates to kitchens for direct meal provision by centers.
- Funding for commissary kitchens aids in broader distribution of ethnic meals, emphasizing non-profit providers.
- The department's goal is to eliminate layers of subcontractors to ensure funding directly benefits service providers and the communities they serve.
Linda Lee
1:23:02
Good morning, everyone, and shout out to all the social workers in the room.
1:23:08
So I have two parts of questions.
1:23:10
One is about case management contracts, and the other one is about the geriatric mental health services.
1:23:14
So in terms of the case management contracts because I know that in my recent memory at least when Bloomberg was mayor, they consolidated a lot of the case management contracts.
1:23:23
And so a lot of the smaller immigrant serving senior centers are not eligible because you need to have a certain number of cases open at any one given time.
1:23:31
So a lot of the larger providers are the ones that end up doing case management.
1:23:35
Which ends up meaning that in terms of the homebound meal delivery providers, those are usually subcontracted.
1:23:41
So just out of curiosity, How many or what percentage of the groups that you have providing culturally sensitive meals or subcontractors versus the main contractors?
1:23:51
And also have you looked at possibly revamping the RFP process to be more inclusive?
1:23:59
Because What ends up happening time and time again is that as subcontractors, they get less portion of the funding, but they're still scratch made meals that are very culturally appropriate.
1:24:10
But and they what ends up happening also just from knowing on the ground is that they end up doing the same work that the case management agencies do because of the language capacity naturally.
1:24:21
Right?
1:24:22
So even though I, as a, you know, Korean serving provider, am not allowed to technically do a lot of that work.
1:24:28
Right?
1:24:29
Legally, we end up doing it anyway because who else is gonna do that?
1:24:32
Because of the language needs.
1:24:34
And so I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit to that.
Anya Herasme
1:24:38
Sure.
1:24:39
So we just actually have new case management providers actually starting in July that RFP just concluded.
1:24:45
And we're actually in the process right now.
1:24:46
We have an RFP for home delivered meals out on the street.
1:24:50
And so we'll also Yep.
1:24:51
Tentatively have new providers for that.
1:24:53
One of the the biggest changes to our our home delivered meals RFPs actually to eliminate too many subs.
1:25:00
Because we we do recognize that that is at a depth, you know, that oftentimes hurts, like you said, the small providers who do the ethnic meals.
1:25:09
We are very proud that we require all of our home delivered meals programs to serve the different communities and to be competent in that and our nutritionists work with them to make those menus, to make sure that they have those options available depending on the threshold of the community.
1:25:25
And we are encouraging commissary kitchens, so we actually funded for centers, or for programs.
1:25:31
To do to help cook for the rest of the network.
1:25:34
And one of those providers is actually one of our ethnic providers who does halal meals.
1:25:38
So that's available more widely to the network.
Linda Lee
1:25:41
Are those more for profit or nonprofit?
Anya Herasme
1:25:43
No.
1:25:43
That's nonprofit.
1:25:43
Okay.
1:25:44
Yes.
1:25:45
And then we, you know, we we're hoping we're encouraging all of our programs to cook on-site.
1:25:50
We also have a list of all of our older adult centers who are able to provide meals for HCM programs as an option to also support, to do more in house cooking, to help the nonprofits that we we work with already to, you know, to continue expand and serve within the community.
1:26:11
So just having the okay.
Linda Lee
1:26:12
So having less subcontractors, does that mean that you increase the total number of contractor meal contractor providers for home home delivered meals?
Anya Herasme
1:26:20
Not necessarily.
1:26:20
Basically, we're trying to eliminate more subs of subs.
1:26:24
So in in places where we can encourage the providers to cook themselves, and support them in doing updates to their kitchens or whatever the needs are.
1:26:30
We're looking into ways to fund those things.
1:26:32
You know, obviously, it's always money is always a challenge, but where we can, we we are encouraging them to use the kitchens they have.
1:26:40
But when they're using a sub, the encouragement is to either use our commissary kitchens, which or other nonprofits or an older adult center because it is challenging for one program often to cook, say, 4 different you know, types of cuisines, especially if they only have one kitchen.
1:26:54
But that's something that is our goal of ours.
1:26:56
And the the sub of a sub is more that's where really we see the the biggest issue with the, you know, the, basically, the the funds get diluted, the more people it goes through.