President & CEO’s Update

Your Opportunity for Input on Mass-ALA’s Strategic Plan

Dear Members,

The Mass-ALA BOD, staff, and consultants will be working this spring on creating a new strategic plan to guide our priorities and work in the years ahead. We welcome your input on what Mass-ALA’s strategic goals should be, and what big-picture challenges you think Mass-ALA should be leading on or helping you with.

I announced our current strategic plan in a Voice newsletter article in December 2018. In the years since, we made considerable progress and achieved our specific objectives for each strategic goal by the end of 2022, paving the way for us to craft a new plan this year.

On the first strategic goal, “To enhance the quality and scope of educational programs, services, and information,” we updated the QA/QI tool and launched a popular new training program accompanying it, brought back dementia training, updated the Boot Camp training materials, and enhanced the content and increased the frequency of webinars.

On the second strategic goal, “To engage the membership through events, networking, and communication,” we held regional connections meetings that evolved into statewide meetings open to all members, convened business partner meetings to discuss industry trends, and provided substantive summaries of state policy throughout the pandemic, keeping members informed of the latest news impacting assisted living operations.

On the third strategic goal, “To advocate for assisted living providers by shaping legislation and regulations and helping members adapt to those changes,” we successfully advocated for pandemic flexibilities, reopening measures, advanced notification of recertification visits, and clear timelines and processes when ALRs seek to lift regulatory measures such as holds on new admissions.

On the fourth strategic goal, “To recruit and develop the workforce by promoting assisted living as an attractive and viable career path,” we informed consumers of the great work by assisted living staff through digital and print media campaigns thanking the unsung heroes on staff in 2021 and sharing testimonials in 2022 of why staff find it meaningful to work with older adults, leading to thousands of visits to our industry jobs page.

On the fifth strategic goal, “To overhaul the bylaws and streamline governance to enhance organizational productivity while integrating best practices,” we updated Mass-ALA’s bylaws to include terms, succession planning, and to incorporate best practices, and reconstituted the resident care committee.

We couldn’t have accomplished this without your continued membership, support, and engagement. What do you think our goals should be now? Along with members, I have identified some goals for the years ahead that are similar to those in the prior plan, such as more workforce support for assisted living providers, and enhanced legislative and regulatory advocacy. We’re also contemplating new potential goals, such as: increasing access to assisted living through enhanced affordable programs and harnessing the positive energy of residents and family members to help educate the public and advocate for assisted living.

I welcome your ideas and questions, at bdoherty@mass-ala.org. I encourage you to write me by the end of March, as we will be off and running in our creation of the plan by early April.

Brian Doherty

President and CEO