Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[5:32] Speaker A (unidentified): to introduce ourselves and then introduce yourself and we'll get to it. I'm Ann Crean and I'm the Director of Economic Development at SAFE. My model standing here, I'm the Community Development Officer at SAFE. group. And it looks like we also have Amy McLean, and Jamie Comstock, and Shannon. There's a lot of Shannons in our lab. Shannon, I don't know if you want to introduce yourself. So our speaker today, how do you say your last name correctly?
[7:08] Speaker B (unidentified): I pronounce it. She also.
[7:10] Speaker A (unidentified): All right. Well, welcome. And we're so excited to take time out of your schedule to talk about this important issue. So I'm just going to let you take it away.
[7:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you so much for inviting me. And can you hear me okay? I just want you to know, I can't hear you very well. There's a lot of echo. So I don't know what we can do about that.
[7:39] Speaker A (unidentified): but doesn't we'll just leave it okay all right
[7:54] Speaker B (unidentified): if you have a question for me you can just raise your hand because otherwise i can't really tell if you're talking amongst yourselves or want to get my attention i'm going to go ahead and share my screen and not just back here and then and you get very little can you just give me a thumbs up to make sure you can see that 's true okay very good all right so again thanks for inviting me i you know this is a new newish project so we haven't presented very much on it although just this week we presented to the governor's cabinet on aging which was very exciting and they were very engaged so yeah there's a lot of feedback am i am i the only one hearing all that feedback
[8:51] Speaker A (unidentified): yes yeah i don't know I'm going to try to mute ourselves.
[9:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's a little better if you go on mute, although I saw that Shannon had her hand up. But I'm going to keep going. All right, so our project team, it was folks here at the Center on Aging at UMaine and our colleagues down at the Catherine Keller Institute at the University of Maine. And we've had so many conversations about the work that I think we've sort of decided that it was fabulous context for what we hope will be future research. There's just so much more to learn about solo agers, and I would say particularly solo agers in Maine and solo agers in rural Maine. So I'll be very interested to hear your thoughts about all this. Just a tiny little bit of background on the project itself. So our contact was with MCD Global. They're a big public health organization. They used to be small, and they used to be here, only here, based in Maine. But now they're bigger. They have a federal government grant from funded under HRSA to support a rural health collaborative across the four states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and northern New York. And part of that funding goes for ECHO projects, which are, you know, training programs, mostly for clinicians, but also for other groups. And last year, MCD Global surveyed their care to ECHO participants and just on what, you know, what was on their mind about topics of interest. And solo aging actually was high on the list. So they came to us and said, you know, can you put together a project proposal? So we proposed talk, of course, talking to solo agers. So we imagined doing some focus groups and then talking with health and social service providers in key informant interviews. And it actually was remarkably easy to pull together focus groups of solo agers. We thought it would be harder, but we had lots of interest. It was harder to find the health and social service providers. We did, I'm going to just click to the next slide here. We did four key informant interviews because this was last summer people weren't around it was really it was just hard to get folks attention so we pivoted a little bit and we decided to do a provider health and social service provider survey across those four states just to better understand you know what their experiences were with solo agers in their communities and then because this hersa grant this federal grant focused on digital learning we had to create a deliverable that would be folk you know, in a platform somehow online. At the beginning of the project, we weren't really sure what we were going to do, but sort of midway, we decided, okay, a website would be probably the most versatile and accessible product. So that's what we did. And over the course of this project, you can see we engaged about almost 100 people. We had 34 folks in the focus group. We had those four key informant interviews. We sent out 200 provider surveys across the four states, got almost 50 usable responses. And then when we finally had a working version of the website, we piloted it with 11 folks. So this term solo aging, I don't know if any of you have heard of it, but it actually is new-ish, I would say. The older literature on people aging alone used the term elder orphans. Maybe you've heard that. But that is a terribly negative term. And it has, in our views anyway, has this kind of strange overtones of abandonment and kind of pity. So we are delighted to know that solo aging is the new and more inclusive term. But the older definition of solo, a solo ager, is someone who's living alone without immediate family networks and support. And we think that needs to shift a little bit because there's a lot more people who are, for instance, estranged from their family members. They have lots of family, but there's some estrangement going on. There's a lot of tension right now. I don't know if you see it in your community between baby boomers or older Gen Xers and there are millennial kids and Gen Z kids. And that problem is growing. And we heard a fair bit about that in our focus groups. The problem with not having an exact definition for a solo wage or one that's agreed upon in the research community, but also in the policy community, is that we don't have the data. So we end up using, all of us researchers end up using living alone as a proxy for solo aging, although a lot of people living alone do have family supports. So we do need to collect more data. When we started to recruit for the focus groups, we intentionally wanted to use a broader definition that had a subjective quality to it, you know, depending on whether people actually saw themselves or felt like they were aging alone without adequate support. So our marketing materials, our recruiting materials said what you can see on the screen here. Do you feel you are aging without close family or partners and so on? And I think I think a large part that's why we got a good response. I think there's a lot of people out there who, while they might have family or close neighbors, don't feel like they are reliable supports. reports. So a few metrics for you. 25.8% of older adults 65 plus live alone, and that's national data. 28% of older adults 55 plus, again, national data, live alone and don't have any children. 17% of us baby boomers have no adult children. That's 2024 data. And this last metric here is It's just so striking to me because I am a solo ager. 43% of us, I'm not 75 yet, I'm 66, but 43% of women, 75 plus, live alone versus only 24% of men. So double, almost double the number of women. In Maine here, we are just slightly above the national average. Our statewide average is 28.34. before. But honestly, and this is from the Healthy Aging Maine data. I don't know if you look at those reports that the data come from. Well, it's based in census data for the most part, but it's a compilation by the folks at UMass Boston and their Gerontology Institute. And so many communities, you can see the red, it's all over the state, right? The percentage of people living alone in Farmingdale, which is the highest, is 65.1%, which is extraordinary. Blue Hill is next in line at 65.1%. And in Waldeboro, I'm in Bath, so just up the coast from me in Waldeboro, it's 50.9%. I did look up Bangor. Does anybody know what it is in Bangor? If you do, just raise your hand so I can maybe see. No. I'm sorry. I have to move the cat to see the number. It is, it is, it is 36.1 percent, so you're, you know, you're in the middle ish. The lowest in the state is 5.23 percent, and that's in Lebanon, Maine, which I didn't have a chance to look at where it is in the map, on the map. But and just for context, around me and Bath is around, I didn't write it down, but Bath is around the same as you, like 22 or 23 percent. But Woolwich, which is just over the bridge from me in Bath, is only 8.3 percent. Georgetown, which I know has a very high percentage of people 65 and over, is 25 percent. So we're not really sure what's going on. You know, why are the numbers so different and the percentages so different in different communities around the state? What are the different living circumstances of people who report that they are living alone? Lots of information, more for us to find out. Okay, so what did we hear about the solo agers? We found a really interesting dichotomy between solo agers who had been living on their own for a really long time, like most of their adult life, and those who were newly solo because maybe somebody died, intimate partner died, or it was a divorce, or somebody moved far away from adult children, so they were living in an entirely new community. And unsurprising, these longstanding solos really tended to have more established networks, and newer solos were still adapting, some well, some maybe not so well. And again, we did hear from several solos that had family, but were estranged, and that, so that was a new situation for them as well. What we found though, was despite how long folks had been solo, the things that they worried about were remarkably similar. And honestly, solo agents have a lot to manage, and they are like literally doing it by themselves. And this was a lot of what came up for them. It's like, oh my goodness, I have no one to talk to about X, Y, or Z thing that is either happening in my life now or is very likely to happen in the future. And the list of worries, top of the list, of course, fear of falling or getting hurt or having a sudden health decline and then not being able to communicate for help or no one knowing about them for a long period of time. The kinds of health declines, like physical health declines, that are slower, cognitive declines also were on their minds. Several people said they just worried about having to make a move, a res, you know, housing move into a long-term care setting and then not having anyone to help them, not having anyone to even talk through when that would be a good, when would it be a good time, how will finances be managed. So these issues are weighing heavy on solo agers. Most of the folks that we talked to had already been troubled by the fact that they needed to get a ride to a medical appointment, even though they're driving, of course, you know, there's many appointments that we have to have a ride. We can't get home from a medical appointment without a driver, right? So there are a lot of them who are struggling with that. One gentleman said to us, you know, I have a great relationship with my neighbor who helps out with, you know, shoveling or this or that, but I don't feel comfortable asking that neighbor to come over here and help me button my shirt, which is what I needed in a post-operative situation. So it's not only the number of people we might have in our network. It's whether the network, someone in the network can provide the type of care that we might need at some point. Several people who were newly solo had recently moved to really rural spaces and didn't have nearby neighbors. They worried just about long stretches of time being alone, particularly in the winter months. On the issue of surrogate decision maker, this is a complex issue. Most of the solo agents we talked to did have somebody that they had named as a surrogate decision maker for health purposes. But the few people who didn't, or didn't have anybody that they could name, were very much burdened by this. One person said she asked her physician. The physician said, no, I can't do that for you. And this woman was truly just very worried about what she was going to do. Finances, of course, is a big concern for a lot of solos who are not of means, because they know they have to take care of everything by themselves, and that money that they do have may have to last a long time. Late life and end of life planning was also on the list of worries, just about how they would manage getting close to death. Who would they call if they needed something? Several had already made plans for end of life. A few brave folks had already written their obituaries because they wanted to have every last detail tidied up and wrapped in a bow, kind of thing. A lot of people said they didn't want to be a burden, and this showed up not only just an end of life, but also just they didn't want to bother people. Like, I think it's hard for a lot of us older people to ask for help when we need it, because we don't know that we will be in a situation where we can reciprocate. So I don't have an antidote to that, I, but I do think that the issue is one that needs to be fleshed out in our communities. You know, how can we offer ourselves, offer ourselves as helpers to solo agers, and then also contribute, have them contribute something back that might be meaningful. The good news is that there were a significant number of people who were actually delighted to be aging solo. And the rundown is a short list, but it's an important list. Many of them spoke about, okay, well, I have to make a workaround to do X, Y, or Z things safely, like changing a high light bulb, right, or carrying heavy boxes that get delivered to the door. So that feeling of creating a workaround for something gave many solo ages this feeling of self-reliance. A lot of women who had been wives and mothers for their adult lives felt just so much liberation and freedom from doing all the things that we wives and mothers did, right? And one said, you know, my whole adult life, everybody else came first, and now finally I can do the things that I want to do, and I can do them when I want to do them, and I don't have to worry about pleasing others. And a couple just spoke of preferring their own company for a change. So everyone that we spoke to was using technology because these were virtual focus groups, so the study design reflected a certain selection bias, but we still learned a fair bit about how solo ages are using technology. And at least three people told us that they had a smartwatch and found that very helpful because they didn't have to worry about carrying their phone with them, remembering to take their phone if they were gonna go out and shovel or gonna go down steep stairs to do the laundry, something that carried just heightened risk. So that might be an interesting thing to explore in our communities in the use of smartwatches as a way to keep everybody safe. And to get information out. I mean, one person said, I know that I will always be able to be in touch. When I have this smartwatch on, I know I will always be able to be in touch with whoever this person had as a contact. A few folks were using text messaging or emails for an informal check-in group among their networks just to see if, you know, check in periodically or once a day or once a week just to see if everybody's alive and well. A few had signed up for the telephone reassurance programs, the ones that had moved to a text messaging platform. So that's an emerging way to check in on people. And then several were using some online friends groups for social interaction. So what did we learn from that provider survey? Interestingly, only about two-thirds, I thought it would be a little bit higher. Two-thirds said they actually had heard the term solo aging. So I think even just awareness of the term needs a little kind of a boost. Less than a third reported asking specifically either their clients or their patients about living alone. So that we definitely need to get that number up somehow. The concerns that the providers were hearing about from their patients and clients were very similar to what we were hearing from our focus group. So I do think that we have learned a lot that has applicability across provide different types of providers and community services. From the provider survey, the thing that was most interesting to us was that a lot of providers, 85 percent of the responses, said they would be extremely or very interested in resources focused on supporting better supporting solo agers, and they checked on the question that said how you know what kind of resources would you want, they checked a variety of different types of things. So, our big takeaway here was really that providers need and want more information about supporting solo agers. When we did this presentation for the Governor's Cabinet the other day, we prepared a short list of some policy implications, and I thought about taking it out, but then I thought, you know what, some of these might have some applicability to municipal policy. So, maybe give that some thought. I haven't thought it all the way through, but you all might, so I'm gonna I'm gonna show you show you the list. First on the list was the demographics, and as I said, so many older women are aging alone. In a I'm on the strategic planning committee for the Southern Main Agency on Aging, and in a recent meeting they had data that indicated that 70 percent of the people who call into the information and referral service are women living alone, and that contrasts with the percentage of people living alone across all their programs, or women living alone across all their programs, like Meals on Wheels and Bone Builders and all the other things that they do, it's only 54. So when I talked to them about that, they thought that what brought the percentage down was that more men, more older men use their Meals on Wheels than women, because they tend to not have the cooking skills that we have. So they think that's driving the percentage across all programs down, which makes the 70% of women living alone seem a little high. And I don't doubt that. But I think it also tells us that older women living alone are very willing to a call around for help. So that may mean as a policy or as a program matter, we might need to pay attention to the older men. Next on the list was this issue of surrogate decision-making. And it is complex, something for us all to be thinking about. To my knowledge, there is no state in the country that allows an entity to be named as a surrogate decision-maker. And I didn't introduce myself and my background, sorry, but I am a lawyer and I practiced law here in Brunswick for 20 years almost. So I'm familiar with that surrogate decision law. And I went back to look at it again when this issue came to my attention. And indeed, you cannot name an entity like we can do when we need a trustee in our last will and testament. We often name banks as trustees, right? So we have some solo agent colleagues in Minnesota who actually are trying to flesh this issue out a little bit, and I did say to the governor's cabinet, I think this would be a really interesting issue for higher education to do a policy analysis on, like what are the implications of an entity making some healthcare decisions? What are the potential liabilities? What are the benefits? Because there are so many solo agers who just don't know anybody that they could name or that they would feel comfortable naming for a healthcare proxy. Again, the data, we just need more data. And even though we don't have that accepted definition of solo agers, I do think there are opportunities for communities like yours, but also state government to actually start asking questions, more nuanced questions about people who are living alone and whether they feel like they have the support that they might need either now or in the future. And just as an example, colleagues and I have done the statewide needs assessment for the past couple of rounds for the state plan on aging, and there's another round of that coming up in 2027. So we're going to propose to the Office of Aging and Disability Services that we include some more questions about solo agers, and hopefully those data can then inform what next steps we take. And then finally on this list was we really do need to encourage providers to ask more questions. What we heard from solo agers is that we are not being asked whether we live alone. It just doesn't come up unless I bring it up to my doctor and say I'm living alone, she's not going to know. And even if I did bring it up, I don't feel confident, we didn't interview doctors but we should, I don't feel confident that a doctor or nurse practitioner would know what to follow up with. Like, what do you ask next? Because the risks of aging alone run the gamut. People who can't drive have higher risk in a certain area. People who can drive but are very introverted or lonely have a different set of risks. So how do we really extract in the exam room, how do we extract the information that we might need so lots more to think about there. I'm just going to take another minute to show you the website. I've just got a few screenshots. You can go there yourselves. It's solo aging resource center.org is the is the website and we bought that name soloagingresourcecenter.org and just built a free site on google and we're happy with the results. We've had to update it a little bit. We'll try to keep an eye on it. We don't have any more funding for this particular project, but we will try to keep it somewhat updated. This is a landing page. And then when you when you scroll down, you'll see there are categories of resources. So there are we've curated some books, we've curated some videos on solo aging curated, there's lots of research, but we've curated, I don't know, a dozen or so articles and link to them. And then there's actually been a fair bit of mainstream media attention on solo ages in the past couple of years. So we've got those articles too. So if you click on any one of those, it'll take you to a separate page. And then further on down the landing page, there's a list of the themes, the primary themes that came out of our analysis of the focus groups and the key informant interviews. And you can see that list there. They're underlined because they each link to a separate page on the website. And if you clicked on, for instance, the concerns of solo agers, you'll see a summary of what we learned. You'll see some quotes that we heard from individual people and then we decided this was a kind of a last-minute thing but we decided to include some of these demographics because they are so dramatic. So we had healthy aging data for Maine and New Hampshire so we have those citywide metrics Vermont we only had County data so we included the highest counties and then the last thing on the website and I would be so curious to hear input of feedback from any one of you. So this is a start of a conversation guide that a healthcare provider or a social service provider could have with a solo ager, or that a solo ager themselves could use to identify where we might have a particular risk. And the framework of network size, network engagement, and network support came out of some work that I did almost 10 years ago now, when I was working at the Muskie School at USM. And you know, just as a, as an idea, just to sort of give you some context for this, network size is okay. Literally like how many people do I have in my social network? But it's also, for instance, is it an open network? Do the people in my network know each other or not? And those kinds of things matter because if I fall ill, do my friends know how to get in touch with each other? Or do I know one person here, one person there, one person there? They don't know each other. So it makes it harder to kind of rally around somebody if they need a week of hands-on care because of an operation, or months of hands-on care, or they're nearing death, whatever. Whatever. So there are subsets of network size that are important to think about, both as a provider and as a solo ager. Network engagement. I might know a lot of people, but I don't engage very much. Maybe I'm an introvert, or maybe my network is just my people at church, and I don't go to church anymore. So the extent to which I might engage with my network is also another bucket of questions. And then finally, the network support is all about whether my network actually functions to support me in the ways that I need now or might need in the future. It's kind of like the gentleman who didn't have anybody for post-operative care. He might know a ton of people, but if he doesn't feel safe or comfortable asking them for hands-on personal care, then his network isn't functioning to support him in the ways that he might need. So the questions are designed just to get some conversation going, and which hopefully would then lead to changing your network in ways that would support you better. All right. Final thing. There is so much more to learn. This is the top. How many do I have here? Six. There's so many more things we need to learn. But this was the top few. You. What are the policy implications? And by policy implications, I mean federal policy, state policy, and then all of you on the ground in communities. What can we learn? What can we do next? How can we be more supportive? Communities with really high rates of people living alone just fascinates me, troubles me, but fascinates me. So what can you all do to better support? Solo agers told us, every single one, I would say, said, we want to be around other solo agers sometimes. So even though, you know, Maine, as you know, has a very robust age-friendly communities network, but there are very few places that are doing things for solo agers. And there's a couple of emerging programs. We need to learn from them and figure out how to replicate them so that you all can adapt them to your own communities. Gender, I'm telling you, we need to learn more about women. Women often get short shrift when it comes to any kind of research, right? So we need to learn more about women because there's so many of us. And also the men, you know, they're in the minority, but they may have special preferences or needs as they get into late life aging alone. And then, you know, we don't know very much about, at least in these times, these times of, you know, reduced research and change, swift demographic change, food insecurity, like there's a lot going on. So, you know, how can we reduce the risk for solo agers? So health, extreme weather, social health. And I know that all of you in the Age-Friendly Community Network are doing so much. And maybe the takeaway message for all of you is, okay, let's just be also thinking about who's aging alone. And then that interface with healthcare, you know, who's asking about how can providers, doctors and nurses, ask about living alone and still get some information that it's helpful? If I can hear you, I would love to answer questions or just talk about some of these issues because they're fascinating.
[36:57] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, there's been a number of questions. Can you hear me?
[37:14] Speaker B (unidentified): I can hear you when you speak and when you speak slowly and really clearly I can hear you but I can't really hear on the other end of the table.
[37:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Is there anything you want to add, Mariela? Mariela, I have a question. So you have these photo tips and they're online.
[38:22] Speaker B (unidentified): Can anyone type it into the chat? So, this is a really important question, and I think we need to go back to those people who are not using technology and ask them the types of supports that they need. I also feel like, and again, if I were there in person and we could have more of a conversation, it would be more effective. But I'm discouraged by how much we assume that older adults don't want to use technology. Because I think I think you're all learning at the community level that people are open and willing. But and we need the support right like we need support to use technology. So we need to learn more about and I think you're doing this with me. I don't know if you have part of that you're part of Patricia O's echo dot pilot. Yeah, you know we need to learn from that pilot to understand the willingness, the interface, the follow up, the support. So that some of those modalities can be used to address some of the solo aging needs. I think the biggest tech challenge for every single one of us of any age is adapting to its fast-paced change, both hardware and software. And transportation, I'll just say transportation. Has there ever been any issue around aging that doesn't intersect with transportation? It's, it's, it comes up, I mean, it comes up in every conversation that we have with older people. It's a huge,, huge problem.
[41:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Telling them about the echo job we've got down in the commission, the echo job program. Did anybody else have any questions? What kind of, what kind of, what kind of English are you looking at? Do we find words that do that? I'm sorry, I don't remember the chat when you a different type of question and yes and I just think when you talk about older you know solar amazon you know 45 or 60 or 65 that's too many
[42:47] Speaker B (unidentified): We actually had some people in their 50s for this particular study. We use 55 up, so one 50-ish person had a teenager at home, or high 17-year-old or something, thing. And she felt like she was aging alone because she couldn't rely on this teenager for the help that she might need. And that's why I think the definitions need to be a little flexible, right? We know there's so many grandparents who are taking care of grandchildren. You have family at home, but are you going to rely on a 12-year-old grandchild to do? I mean, maybe in an extreme emergency they would get to the phone but it's not 360 degree type of reliable support that we might need
[44:29] Speaker A (unidentified): So, we have so much to do every day to be able to turn people around. We can buy them a test, and then once we open up, I certainly don't want us to have to drive that and let that go. We don't want to do that every year. And obviously, I don't mind for a number of reasons. There's certain areas where there's a cost to know about real-time. I would say to tilt them out, to drive, to just have a set-up, I know I'm not going to find a driver that often, but that's just what we're concerned with. So I'll just add, I'm sorry I haven't got time, I've got to say it.
[46:51] Speaker B (unidentified): I wish that I could give you more information about the driving. A colleague of mine, Tom Muser, who used to be at the University of New England heading up their Center for Excellence in Aging and Health, but he's left UNE and now he's doing private, I think he's, well, I know he's a psychologist. He's doing some Gero, private Gero site consultations, but he's also doing some research with the Department of Transportation for, on just this reason, does, is Maine standard for being able to get a license too high so that people who are well enough to drive can still drive and manage their life. And just as one example, in a conversation I had with Tom maybe, I don't know, a year or so ago, he said that sleep apnea, sleep apnea is actually one of the reportable conditions by doctors for, and then of course, once the doctor reports it, you know, you are, you are called in to take a test or have your license revoked. I don't know exactly what the standards are, but I mean, so many people have sleep apnea and who's talking about that? You know, is sleep apnea actually causing more accidents? Like, where are those data? So there may be a disconnect. In other words, I think in Tom's view, there may be a disconnect between what doctors have to report on their patients and the things that are actually causing harm out in the community. So I just want to be clear, I'm not up on Tom's research. I could try to find some more information and funnel it back through you, Anne, and you all can talk about it. But I think the good news here is that we're talking about this within the state of Maine, precisely because we have so many people in rural communities. And the driving thing affects everybody who's older, and not just solo agers. It affects a lot of people, many people who are older, and really affects solo agers. Yeah, it's a great question and a great issue to keep thinking about. I just want to say too, because I'm reading that last comment about the neighborhoods. We have a young colleague down at UMass Boston who is doing her PhD on social capital in neighborhoods, and she comes to and she comes to those links solo aging links meetings, Sophia Casal, and she that's what she's studying is like what are the interventions in neighborhoods that can connect people more so that they can build up the close relationships that are needed so that there's trust and, assistance. Just by way of anecdote, I live north end of Bath on a dead end street. And this end is all older people and most of us are solo agers and I keep and I know my neighbors but I wouldn't want any of them coming over to button my shirt for sure so I but it's been on my mind I should be the one to like start hosting potlucks or you know it's it's not just an easy thing to do to start building those neighborhood groups you need a champion you need somebody who has time and energy and all of that which I have energy but maybe no time okay researcher or Dartmouth. Yeah. Interesting. That's so interesting. Yeah. I think this is exactly what is needed. And I even said to the cabinet the other day, it would be wonderful if Maine or some subset of the Maine health could pilot a conversation type guide that maybe could then and lead to a place in our portals, in our health portals, that would allow us to leave information about the types of risks we patients, older patients feel are putting us at risk. Like I don't feel, I still drive and move around and all of that, where I feel most at risk is home maintenance stuff. And cause I'm not handy. And so, but to a doctor that might not seem like much, but actually it's very problematic when there are emergency things that happen at home, and we all have that right. So and I also feel a little bit at risk in the in the snow and walking on icy because I live on a hill and blah. So you know these are unique to each individual in their environment, and it would be great to have some place. Is there a place where I can go to look at that program? Yes. That's OK. All right, copying it. I'll look it up. Yes.
[52:45] Speaker A (unidentified): Because I lived here, I wanted to. And I wanted to try it out here. So we chose a local network of doctors to integrate this technology. So when you type things on the tablet, it actually goes in your chart, and it analyzes, and it will show up as red, yellow, or green. So then you have answers of, oh, and then who's going to talk to it, which direction, the root of all anxiety about substance use.
[53:27] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm hesitating because I don't I feel like I'm interrupting, but I can't always tell when somebody has stopped talking. I think it's fascinating, like, from a, like, you know, what is the problem that needs? Is there a problem that needs fixing perspective, which we often are because policymakers, right, like, substance use has been on the radar for a long time, it should have been on for a longer time. You know we're late to the party and trying to address that, but I feel like people living alone is not even in it's not even under a wide umbrella for problems that need to be fixed because we don't have the data. So it may take us a while us meeting the collective, but also here in Maine just may take a while to collect data that tells policy makers whether it's all of you at the local level or in Augusta wherever that this is a problem that needs an agenda, a political and policy agenda. So I guess I'm saying all that to urge all of you to keep talking about it amongst yourselves and in your community, and then let's all stay in touch with each other. So wow I know. Thank you so much. You are so delighted to be here. And yeah, let's stay in touch.
[55:23] Speaker A (unidentified): So they have a very high-hour real-sleep price, too. So that's interesting. Yeah, so maybe it has something to do with people who are retired. They're also refueled, which is fun. So maybe it has something that we would grab outside of the bus stop, but we're not in the bus stop. It's interesting, I wonder what Belfast's numbers are, because I kind of think of that as a place where a lot of people went in the 90s as in all of those, you know, coming out of the ringers, I'm just saying. Yeah. Look at the other point in there, right? The other point in there. Like what time of the night? So the light also might be giving you to be in the middle of something. So why is the room is there without us being there? Right. Yeah. It was a challenge. Yeah, give me a thumbs up, maybe she's on the call or something. That's so interesting. Great. Yeah, but now it should be like, because it's research app and all the other parts of it will have to be laid out. Keep it where it can. All the other parts of it will still be laid out. It makes sense. Well, this is the line I'm trying to explain. It's a long line. It's a long line. Yeah, it's a long line. Yeah, it's a long line. So I wanted to just first give folks some information, as Donald was saying, we had an open house on Tuesday, we also, so I had a little CEG in Maine, and then also CEG in more bangla interesting for you we also released our cpg funding overview because we just started our patient decision and so this talks a little bit about what we've learned about the community and priorities where we think about ways that funds should go and we'd really like to hear your thoughts on that and then just it also lets you know that we are going to we are accepting allocations for funding and we really want to see a member of the community perhaps a volunteer to sit on that allocation committee where you go over that allocation and we're making a lot of money around innovation that's what we call it so if that's something you're interested in that is a very popular target as well you know that's what you guys see you know The other thing that I wanted to just be clear with you is, I've been talking with Vance from downtown about the possibility of doing kind of an extension of the sidewalk office that we did a couple of years ago. So we're going to be doing two directional audits to figure out what the downtown business excess of their buildings would be. With the idea that potentially we could fund perhaps more of the ramps that would, you know, put those open potentially. What do you think? Would we get shopping in those buildings? That were essentially small grants for all of the businesses. I don't recall a lot of that, but a little bit. And it's an interesting thing, you know, it's really important to me that we have been ready for a project, and we need to, you know, take that to more and more and more communities to review, and we really want to kind of have an initiative plan. I don't know if this is something that people won't grab onto, because something that I can say is when we promoted to a meeting on our social media page, a lot of people arrived, and they were very dismissive. It's like, oh, that's not a community that always sees themselves in the news. But as Annie and I were talking about bringing the sheets, and we were thinking about, you had an example of when you were a young mom, and you were in something like, and you showed one of your children, and so she was able to figure out whether to sign off on it or whether to sign off on it. Yeah. Yeah. So, from a strong list to well, it's like you mentioned that we were sort of excited. So, we thought we saw an instrument that I have over, and, you know, I'm part of that community and this is something that I think the last was very tangible. So, I kind of wanted to do it right here, but right before that, we were getting our completion decision on the phone to kind of say, how do we do this, and is it a priority? I don't see that there was a service role. It was something that we were pushing. I don't think that. I went to a home region, something, Utah, and it was a big architect that was talking with a lot of Haitians. And she happened to say something, and she said strongly as well, like, I don't know what I should say. And there's a continuum there, because a lot of the people don't realize who they are. I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying to do something. And you can parent them, you know, and you can think about the process of their relief now. Right. You better try to push a stronger one hand, and also break it down a little bit. You've got to tie them up there. You know, that's sort of, you know, one of the cars, you know, all the way around the stairs, so, you know, so then we're sort of, you know, like, yeah,, so, I thought it would be fun, too. I think that in terms of like, you know, that we couldn't promote it, and we put it all around town, and there's some fanfare about it, and, you know, how, you know, we couldn't be loud about it. It's very much the same thing. If we do a little line of line, we can do a little line of line and mention that we promote. We could just have a chat about it. We could talk about it. Well, we can do that. Oh, right. I agree. I mean, it could be, you know, we could build that up. We could be in a relationship. I would do this to me, so I could promote it to me. Or do a good work. Then you would create a little branch. Absolutely. I think that's how we got started, which is that we have a lot of managers and then the law, and it's not difficult to do, and, you know, there's a short-term budget So yeah, it was still an average, but I don't know if we'll do this project if we want to do it. But anyway, we've got a little bit of a chance. We've got a little bit of time left. We've got a little bit more time left. And we'll be able to find a way to change the momentum. Because we're not in a place where we don't want to show the threshold. So, yeah, you know, I don't think that necessarily is something that is welcome to that, even though it's something that we all share. I don't think that's the purpose, right? There's a lot of things that I want to do, and there's a lot that we do, but there's some. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there was something that was in the book. But it's a really good resource. You know, some of the data, a couple weeks ago, you could watch the news, and you know, see it. And I thought, well, so I can tell you a name. I don't know if you're silly, but who had been sitting in the Societal Agility Center. Yes. Of their programming was how I happened to be at an event. I think it was the new harvest event, and there was the video that kind of captured the different. She was talking about integration, and then that's before they came. You know, they were right out of here. You know, oh, I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna talk, and I'm not gonna be like, hey, so, Sweeney, what do you want to do? I was wondering why I would say that. Well, I'm hosting a role at St. Joseph's Health Network. I have a lot of work to do at the moment. Well, if I'm going to school, yeah. But we all have photos, you know, and we're so motivated. You can ask a lot of, I don't know, and that would be another thing to say, you know, something like that. Well, this is what I was thinking is that we do have a wide queue of the POQs if you're depression in them very well. That's a question about, you know, different factors that tend to contribute to it. Can easily, there are instruments that would add one question to that instrument to pay, you know, you want to go with a related, you really approve that, but it's one way to take one question in something that actually exists. Was talking to me on the street. Yeah, so you were turning left. No, the little roundabout thing, and I noticed that there was a continual remark to me now. We were making a right on the door that came home. And that genuinely woke me. I thought, oh, that was horrible. Just you were turning, and I saw some of the keyites. No,, no. I think that's fascinating a little bit, because you don't think about how those meals come to you. I don't think about it. I'm not that kind of person. I don't think about it. I don't think about it. So I go out all the time, but I have a question about eating. I read a book about eating. Do you have any experience with eating, like, during those weeks? Oh, not really. Aging, and then I understand that in the future was concerned about it, right? It must be better mobilized. There's so many resources, transportation program. I know some of the hospitals have transportation programs too, right? And I just started out leaving. People don't know about them, so I mean, I don't think this is what it's like yesterday when I found out that I would have wanted to move circuit all the way around. So there's someone who wants to do it, and we all want to do it, they age. Discrimination, that's what ages. But they do have, you know, they have a comparable program that I go into, the child development center. Like if they show them the problems, you know, you know, we're having so many people kind of in the background, which I don't really, and then I didn't have to try to do it to the questions that you have. And then I'm not really interested in learning about use and use of substances. Because I have a thinking about it, but my brain, and to my resources, but also to my website. But actually, that way, I'm going to continue to write. I'm sure. And then we'll try to work with them to have sort of an unveiling of the drop-down list. I'm not going to go down and say I'm apathetic. Because some of those people don't use technology. Trying to do it, but we don't realize very much should, do anything, like,, we would slowly get out of that, but, you know, it isn't apart from what she was talking about in the setting. So, I think we find out from it. I've had, actually, so many times where, And so we're learning, I used to work for the Center, and I think I'm on my. Yeah. And there's the chair element, patient guide. We're going to cover those types of stories. But again, it will give us opportunity to kind of look at the facts. What are the concerns? What are the needs? And then share them with us. I mean, we're out of time. Don't worry. We know what resources are available. We're going to help you. And they're going to always see what's actually in there as a resource. So I think that alone is really something that, you know, if you put it together, you know, say about, you know, a website, how do you let people know that there's a book, there's a bookshop, that there's a website, or, you know, you can go to that website, you know. I think it's just that people who are un-sexualized, how many names do you ever have in order to find out who they are? I don't know. I mean, I'm probably more than I probably would, but I don't want to be involved in any kind of activity. There are so many things that I can say, things that change, things that are very close to what's there on social media, on the website and things like that. But when you look at, you know, about 30 people who are over in class, so... And I think that we know about that. I remember also in the summer, it was safe to go to sleep with them without going to sleep in the rain. You can check, you know, should we stay in the pool parking? Should we do a, you know, what should we do? That's how I started our work with our neighbor in Calebville. Okay, everyone, do you have a comment? I do. I'm going to say there's a lot of people in the SOFA program who've been dealing with ethics in the program. Is that safe for you, Sarah? No. Well, sorry, I'll talk about it later. Do you know of a socialization program? No. Sure. It'd be a great way to take them down. Yeah, but I'm going to start with the search aspect, and then we'll move on. There's no need to know the path of people. They don't want to go into the outside. They're the way they are. They're on the two left of the road. They shouldn't support themselves. It's all the same thing. Some people, it's a big deal. But then they're the way they are, and then they think that is fine. They'll go through the water. I don't know if you can hear me, but I think I'm going to have to go on that day. I'm not going to be able to pass events because I don't know how I was supposed to know John. So just keep me in touch. Well, thanks, everybody. See you out there.