Gettysburg, PA – Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) Secretary Jason Kavulich today continued a statewide tour highlighting how the Shapiro Administration’s new monitoring tool for evaluating the performance of older adult protective services is delivering better results in keeping older adults safe.
That tool, the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE), replaces a prior ineffective pass/fail system that did not provide adequate oversight of the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) network, nor did it tell a AAA what specific steps they needed to take to become compliant. CAPE not only provides those granular details to ensure a AAA is able to improve, but it also delivers historic levels of transparency and accountability of the AAA network, which provides an array of services to support older adults, including protective services. In the 26-27 budget, Governor Josh Shapiro secured a $1 million increase for CAPE so the Department can continue to improve AAA oversight and accountability.
“Under the leadership of Governor Shapiro, the Department of Aging is providing unprecedented levels of transparency and oversight of the AAA network that touches the lives of thousands of older adults every day with services that help them stay healthy, safe and living independently in their communities,” said Secretary of Aging Jason Kavulich. “The previous monitoring system only told a AAA whether it passed or failed and provided no insight on how to improve. With a rapidly growing older adult population and growing need for services, we need a system that does much more than that. CAPE raises the bar of accountability and communication to ensure our local aging agencies not only know their score but are armed with the right insight to improve their services and ultimately keep older adults safe."
During a visit today with Adams County aging services leaders, Secretary Kavulich noted that the work of serving and protecting older adults has never been more transparent in Pennsylvania. Through CAPE, monitoring results are now routinely posted to the Department’s website for the first time ever, with clearly defined, simple key categories for each AAA. For the first time in the Department’s history, the public can see exactly how well their local AAA is doing in programs including Protective Services, OPTIONs (help at home) services and Caregiver Support Program services.
Lynn Deardorff, Executive Director, Adams County Office for Aging, Inc., noted that their CAPE monitoring led the agency to upgrade their management structure and hire three new staff to strengthen supervision of protective services and care management services. This included creating a new position of program supervisor focused on quality assurance and training new workers to meet performance standards, hiring an additional protective services worker, and hiring a second care management aide whose focus includes ensuring timely financial and medical documentation for protective services cases.
“CAPE is a tool that I wish was available 13 years ago when I started with the agency as a care manager. At that time, there was little information on correct ways to document our Home and Community programs and our Protective Services program,” said Deardorff. “That is no longer the case. The CAPE performance measures are clear and concise as to what is expected from our agency to serve our older adults better. Since our monitoring, our staff understands what is expected from them and which areas we need to improve. I am thankful for CAPE and the tools that it has provided to our agency to help us succeed and better serve the older adults in our county.”
Launched in 2025, CAPE streamlines monitoring of a AAA’s performance through a more comprehensive approach, where each of Pennsylvania’s 52 AAAs is evaluated for different programs during a singular monitoring review. This approach gives the Department a better snapshot of the local organization’s overall functioning, helping to quickly identify trends and focus training resources where they are most needed. Secretary Jason Kavulich recently hosted a virtual training for 500 aging network professionals to directly address issues identified through the new system that, for years, often went unaddressed.
A deeper dive into the development of CAPE is available here.
The Department’s overhauled approach to monitoring the AAAs more aggressively, to hold them accountable and boost transparency of the process, is already making a difference in other key areas of performance:
- As of March 2026, 48 out of 52 Area Agencies on Aging are responding to reports of suspected elder abuse in a timely manner 85 or more percent of the time, often within 24 hours.
- The Department also monitors and measures each AAA monthly on the percentage of protective services cases where determination was achieved within a 20-day timeframe; as of March 2026, more than half (28) Area Agencies on Aging — including Adams County — are scoring 85% or better on meeting the 20-day timeframe.
Three more AAAs – Butler, Cambria and Crawford – recently joined the growing list of agencies that have recently been evaluated, bringing the total number of results for AAAs on PDA’s website to 31, covering 42 counties. CAPE monitoring order and completion status for each AAA is here.
The Department will continue to provide that safe, reliable care thanks to a $1 million increase in the 26-27 budget for Aging Our Way, PA — the Shapiro Administration’s comprehensive 10-year strategy to transform services and strengthen support for older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers.
Since taking office in 2023, Governor Josh Shapiro has invested more than $20 million to make life better for older Pennsylvanians by helping them stay safe, healthy and engaged in their communities and to continue building community supports as they age.
Learn more about how Pennsylvania is serving the needs of older adults by visiting the Department of Aging's website.