“CAPE has provided a vital framework for enhancing our operations and directly improving the services we deliver to older adults in Lehigh County.” – JR Reed, Executive Director, Lehigh County Office of Aging and Adult Services
Allentown, PA – Following Governor Josh Shapiro’s signing of the 2026-27 budget into law, the Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) launched a statewide tour highlighting how the Department’s new approach to evaluating the performance of older adult protective services is delivering better results in keeping older adults safe, leaving behind a prior ineffective pass/fail system that did not provide adequate oversight of local aging agencies.
That tool, the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE), is also providing historic levels of transparency and accountability of the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) network that provides an array of services to support older adults, including protective services. In the 26-27 budget, Governor Shapiro secured a $1 million increase for CAPE so the Department can continue to improve AAA oversight and accountability.
“Older adults in Pennsylvania deserve a modernized system that helps them stay safe and supported, healthy and thriving, but our infrastructure had not kept pace with the growing and changing needs of older adults,” said Secretary of Aging Jason Kavulich. “The Shapiro Administration took this challenge head on and is making overdue system improvements. We have raised the bar of accountability. CAPE allows the Department to do away with a simple pass/fail scoring system, and instead comprehensively ask, ‘what does this local agency specifically need to improve?’"
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. 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 are scoring 85% percent or better on meeting the 20-day timeframe.
Two more AAAs – Pike and Somerset – join the growing list of agencies that have recently been evaluated, bringing the total number of results for AAAs on PDA’s website to 28, covering 39 counties. CAPE monitoring order and completion status for each AAA is here.
During a visit today with Lehigh County aging services and county 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.
JR Reed, Executive Director, Lehigh County Office of Aging and Adult Services, said that the CAPE evaluation of his agency has helped his team understand where staff training needed to be strengthened to enhance the quality of their work for older adults.
"The implementation of the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE) has provided a vital framework for enhancing our operations and directly improving the services we deliver to older adults in Lehigh County,” said Reed. "This comprehensive evaluation prompted our agency to implement more in-depth staff training and establish a deeper, more robust quality assurance review process for our cases. At the Lehigh County Office of Aging and Adult Services, we are always striving to elevate the quality of our work, ensuring that our interventions lead to safer, more supportive, and improved outcomes for the older adults who rely on our services."
“I am grateful for the CAPE system, as it reflects the comprehensive and thorough nature of what it takes to provide the services we provide,” said Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel. “The old system was simply pass or fail, which didn’t adequately reflect the incredible services provided by our amazing staff. All too often, the results treated the system as all bad or all good. This new CAPE system, and this new process of determining where individuals can make improvements, and where we are doing exceedingly well, better reflects the motto of the administration and mine – one should never expect perfection, but you should demand progress, and that is at the core of the CAPE system.”
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.