Pennsylvania officials are rolling out new regional coalitions designed to improve how communities respond to complex cases of elder abuse, part of a broader effort by the Shapiro administration to expand protections for older adults.
State Aging Secretary Jason Kavulich highlighted the initiative Tuesday during a visit with leaders from the Berks, Lancaster and Lehigh County Area Agencies on Aging, among the first local agencies to receive customized support in building Multidisciplinary Teams, or MDTs.
The teams bring together professionals from multiple fields — including social services, law enforcement, civil justice, mental health, medicine, finance and public health — to coordinate responses when older adults face abuse, neglect or exploitation. The approach is supported by the U.S. Department of Justice and has been used in other states, including New York and California.
The Department of Aging said the MDT model is intended to help agencies move more quickly, share expertise and connect victims with the right resources while keeping responses centered on the needs of the individual.
Five applications were selected through a competitive process to receive consulting support from Weill Cornell Medicine. The selected sites include three individual counties — Bucks, Cumberland and Indiana — as well as two multi-county “MDT Hubs.” One hub consists of Lehigh, Lancaster and Berks counties, while the second includes Clearfield, Jefferson, Potter, Cameron, Elk and McKean counties.
Through the partnership, Weill Cornell Medicine will provide technical guidance to help participating agencies establish and strengthen MDT structures, improve cross-sector decision-making and develop consistent, measurable outcomes. State officials said the geographic diversity of the sites will allow Pennsylvania to test and refine the model across rural, suburban and regional settings.
The initiative comes as Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed 2026-27 budget calls for more than $6 million in additional investments in aging services. The administration is also pushing for updates to the Older Adults Protective Services Act, including adding financial exploitation as a crime, expanding caregiver background check requirements, and creating older adult fatality review teams to identify systemic gaps when deaths are connected to protective services investigations.
Since taking office in 2023, Shapiro has invested more than $20 million aimed at helping older Pennsylvanians remain safe, healthy and engaged in their communities.
The Department of Aging works with a statewide network of 52 Area Agencies on Aging serving all 67 counties. Officials also pointed to the Comprehensive Agency Performance Evaluation, or CAPE, launched in March 2025, as a new framework for monitoring agency performance, including protective services. The department began posting results publicly for the first time last year, with additional reports expected in the coming months.
Source: pa.gov