Harrisburg, PA – Pennsylvania’s older adults are safer and better protected thanks to an unprecedented level of oversight and accountability under the leadership of Aging Secretary Jason Kavulich.
The Secretary continued a statewide tour this week in Allegheny County, highlighting how the Shapiro Administration’s new approach to evaluating the performance of older adult protective services is delivering better results and keeping older adults safe.
That new approach is called the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE), a tool that tells local aging agencies exactly what they need to do to improve, and leaves behind a deficient legacy system that only told an agency if it passed or failed - but neglected to provide any details on how to come into compliance.
In a recent op/ed from Crawford County’s aging leadership, CAPE receives praise for its “comprehensive view” of a local aging agency’s performance, sharing that “rather than asking only whether an agency passed, [CAPE] examines what the agency is doing well, where improvement is needed and what specifically should change.”
In the 2026-27 budget, Governor Josh Shapiro secured a $1 million increase for CAPE so the Department can continue to improve oversight and accountability of the Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) network.
Read about the Department’s overhauled approach to monitoring AAAs and how it’s keeping older adults safe in the op/ed below.
Pa. offers nuanced monitoring of agencies for older adults
By Krista Geer, Executive Director of Active Aging Inc., Crawford County
Every day, employees at Active Aging provide services and support to older adults throughout Crawford County in a variety of ways. One of our most challenging responsibilities is Older Adult Protective Services. When someone reports suspected abuse, neglect or exploitation involving an adult age 60 or older, trained staff must determine whether the report meets regulatory requirements and, when appropriate, investigate.
That work may involve visiting an older adult, interviewing family members and other witnesses, reviewing medical and financial records, locating collateral contacts, and coordinating with physicians, banks, law enforcement agencies, attorneys and service providers. Staff must evaluate safety and risk while also respecting an older adult's legal right to make personal decisions — even decisions others may believe are unwise.
Protective services work is complex, time-consuming and often misunderstood. Because of confidentiality requirements, we often cannot tell the person who made a report — or the broader community — what actions were taken. That silence can look like inaction from the outside, even when staff may have spent days or weeks investigating concerns, coordinating services and working to reduce risk. What is often perceived as inaction can also be the older adult exercising their right to refuse our interventions or involvement. This is one reason effective oversight is so important. The public deserves confidence in the aging network, and Area Agencies on Aging need meaningful information that helps us strengthen the services we provide.
The Pennsylvania Department of Aging recently visited Crawford County to discuss its Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation, commonly known as CAPE, making this an important moment to explain what the review means for local residents. CAPE evaluates programs including protective services, OPTIONS services that help older adults remain safely at home, and the Caregiver Support Program. Active Aging performed well in our CAPE evaluation, and our employees deserve to be recognized for that achievement. They are the people doing the work, serving older adults and documenting the decisions that are reviewed during the evaluation process.
We are proud of those results, but strong performance does not mean there is nothing left to learn. Under the previous monitoring system, agencies essentially received a passing or failing result. Active Aging consistently passed, which assured us that we were meeting basic expectations. What that system did not always provide was detailed feedback about other regulatory requirements, documentation issues or practices that could be improved before they became larger problems.
CAPE provides a more comprehensive view. Rather than asking only whether an agency passed, it examines what the agency is doing well, where improvement is needed and what specifically should change. That can be uncomfortable, particularly for employees who work hard and care deeply about doing their jobs correctly. However, an identified deficiency does not erase the good work employees perform every day, nor does it mean they have failed. It means we have been given information that can help us improve.
CAPE results are also being posted publicly, giving Pennsylvanians greater insight into how their local Area Agency on Aging is performing. Transparency is important, but the public should also understand what these evaluations measure. When CAPE identifies an issue, it does not necessarily mean that meaningful work did not occur. Sometimes the work was not documented clearly enough. Sometimes a required datafield was entered incorrectly. Sometimes the evaluation identifies a process that needs to be strengthened. Those distinctions matter, but so does correcting the problem.
At Active Aging, we are proud of our CAPE results and of the employees whose work produced them. We will recognize what they are doing well, address the areas where improvement is needed and continue striving for excellence. Accountability should be more than a label of pass or fail. At its best, it creates transparency, encourages honest communication and gives dedicated professionals the information they need to serve people better.
For the older adults and families who depend on us, simply passing should never be the final goal. The goal should be a system that is transparent enough to earn public trust, honest enough to learn from its own shortcomings and strong enough to keep improving the services older adults rely on every day.