Aging Preparedness Solutions™
Cross-systems aging preparedness for adults with lifelong intellectual disability
Aging Preparedness Solutions™ (APS) designs policy, system, and implementation architecture that helps aging, disability, and long-term services systems prepare for demographic change, aging caregivers, and the long-term support needs of people with lifelong disabilities.
APS works at the intersection of federal policy, state systems, Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services waivers, managed care, nonprofit service delivery, housing, and — where relevant — Regional Center infrastructure — translating long-range demographic realities into planning frameworks, pilot programs, and system reforms.
Our flagship work is a federal policy proposal, Aging Preparedness as a Federal Life-Stage Framework for Adults Aging with Lifelong Intellectual Disability, which advances Aging with a Lifelong Intellectual Disability as a distinct federal Life Stage — modeled on the design logic of IDEA Part C — and proposes a national Aging Preparedness framework anchored by the Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP).
Why This Matters
Demographic reality, policy lag, and the planning gap that makes aging dangerous for families.
The Systems Context
Aging with Lifelong Disability Has Become Normative — and Federal Policy Has Not Caught Up
Adults with lifelong intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) are aging into later life in unprecedented numbers. Life expectancy for someone with I/DD has risen from as low as 19 years in the early 20th century to nearly 70 today. By 2034, older adults will outnumber children in the U.S. for the first time in history — and the I/DD population is aging with them.
1.2M+
Adults with I/DD age 60+ by 2030
Over three-quarters live with family caregivers, many of whom are themselves in their 70s or 80s.
90%
Lifetime dementia risk for persons with Down syndrome
Onset typically occurs before age 65 — well within working-age service systems.
The problem is not a service shortfall — services exist. What does not exist is a coherent planning framework that assigns responsibility for anticipatory planning, connects systems around a shared instrument, and treats aging with lifelong disability as the distinct, predictable life stage it is.
The Planning Gap, Not a Service Gap
Aging with lifelong disability is now normative. Adults with I/DD are living longer. The demographic case has been made. What has not yet been built is the planning architecture that public systems need to respond to it coherently — before crisis, not after.
Services exist. What does not exist is a coherent planning framework that:
  • Assigns responsibility for anticipatory planning to public systems
  • Connects I/DD, aging, Medicaid, and housing systems around a shared planning instrument
  • Treats aging with lifelong disability as the distinct, predictable life stage it is
The result is systems fatigue: the cumulative burden of navigating disconnected systems over a lifetime. Families carry the coordination burden that should belong to public infrastructure. APS exists to build the planning architecture that existing systems need in order to respond coherently, before crisis.
The Framework
The proposed Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) and the cross-system architecture connecting aging and disability systems around it.
Why a Proposed Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) Is Essential
The most common objection to any new planning framework is this: families and systems are already drowning in plans. The proposed Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) was designed with that objection in mind. It is not a new document added to an existing stack. It is a new planning function — made necessary by a predictable life stage — activated within the planning relationship that already exists.
"The form follows the function."
"The function follows the life stage."
"The life stage follows the demographic reality."
How It Would Work: The Opt-In Transition
The proposed IFAP would not replace the existing adult person-centered care plan — it would extend it. At the conclusion of a regular planning meeting, the service coordinator, care planner, or case manager would offer an opt-in. If the family chose to engage, the existing case management record would activate a new set of domain-specific prompts — caregiver health and succession, housing readiness, dementia risk, legal planning, sibling preparedness. The existing plan would become the IFAP. Same meeting. Same planning relationship. No family starting over.
Function Required. Mechanism Flexible.
A critical distinction runs through the entire framework: the planning function is non-optional, while the mechanism through which states deliver it remains flexible. Once aging with lifelong disability is recognized as a distinct life stage, family-inclusive planning becomes structurally necessary — for precisely the same reason that recognizing early childhood as a life stage made structured family planning necessary. What is required is that the planning conversation happens. How it is documented, which agency leads it, and which tools are used — those are state-level decisions. The IFAP is not a fixed universal form. It is a required planning function implemented through state-specific mechanisms that fit existing systems.
What the Proposed IFAP Would Address That Existing Plans Typically Don't
Aging Transition
  • Caregiver health and functional decline
  • Housing readiness and residential transition
  • Dementia risk screening and planning
  • Legal planning (guardianship, power of attorney, trusts)
  • Sibling and family successor preparedness
  • Service system transition (disability to aging system)
  • Financial planning and benefit continuity
  • Social connection and community integration
End of Life
  • Caregiver succession and emergency backup planning
  • Final residential placement and hospice readiness
  • Advance directives and healthcare proxies
  • Estate planning and special needs trusts
  • Grief and bereavement support for the individual
  • Notification and coordination across systems
  • Disposition of guardianship and decision-making authority
  • Memorial and end-of-life preferences documentation
The Conduit Problem: Why Systems Still Fail Families
Even where aging and disability systems have strong relationships, a specific structural gap remains: the conduit between them.
In most states, there is no designated bridge that:
  • Carries IFAP information from I/DD planning processes into aging and ADRC systems
  • Assigns accountable roles on both sides of the aging-disability boundary
  • Ensures that aging-related plans and caregiver succession plans actually trigger coordinated action
The result is that families experience warm relationships, cold handoffs. Cross-system forums and alliances are necessary — but they are not sufficient. Coordination that depends on goodwill, individual relationships, and informal knowledge does not survive staff turnover, budget cycles, or system transitions. Durable coordination requires something goodwill cannot provide: defined planning functions, accountable roles, shared indicators, and infrastructure that outlasts the people who built it.
The Aging Preparedness framework directly confronts this conduit problem and proposes an operational model for solving it — one built on structure, not relationships alone.
Lifespan Architecture: Completing the Planning Spine
Federal policy already recognizes early life as a distinct planning challenge. Infants and toddlers have the IFSP under IDEA Part C. School-age children and youth have IEPs. Adults with disabilities often have IPPs.
Later life for adults with lifelong intellectual disability remains the only major life stage without a federal planning framework. Aging Preparedness proposes to complete that spine:
01
IFSP — Early Childhood (Part C)
Individualized Family Service Plan — federally required planning for infants and toddlers with developmental challenges.
02
IEP — School Years
Individualized Education Program — federally required planning for school-age children and youth.
03
Adult Care Plan (various names) — Adult Disability Services
Adult-age person-centered planning within the I/DD state service systems.
04
IFAP — Aging with a Lifelong Disability (Proposed)
Individual and Family Aging Plan — the proposed planning instrument for the final life stage, currently missing from the federal architecture.
Recognizing Aging with a Lifelong Intellectual Disability as a federal Life Stage brings later life into the same architectural logic as Early Childhood: life stage → planning function → coordination rules → standards and funding.
What APS Contributes
The original constructs, policy architecture, and evidentiary backbone APS is advancing — not assembled from familiar ideas, but derived from a unified framework that does not yet exist in the field.
Five Original Contributions to Aging & Disability Policy
The white paper authored by APS introduces five original constructs that do not yet exist in the aging or disability policy literature under a unified architecture. Each is a genuinely new idea — not a variation on prior frameworks, not a restatement of existing policy, and not yet explored or codified in governmental action:
1
Systemic Aging Preparedness as a Named Field of Practice
Systemic Aging Preparedness names a field that did not previously exist under this label, giving scattered practices across aging, disability, managed care, housing, and family support a conceptual home — and identifying systems fatigue as the problem that field is organized to solve. Naming the field is not a semantic exercise — it is the precondition for funding it, measuring it, and holding systems accountable to it.
2
The IFAP Function/Mechanism Distinction
The framework separates what is required from what is flexible: once the life stage is recognized, the family-inclusive planning function is non-optional, while the mechanisms states use to deliver that function remain adaptable to their structures — mirroring the design logic of IDEA Part C. This distinction is what makes the framework politically viable: it sets a national floor without imposing a national blueprint.
3
Agency Across the Aging Continuum
Agency is not a binary of independence versus dependence. As abilities change, support can take different forms while preserving the individual's voice, preferences, and sense of self.
  • Standing Ready: support steps back but remains available.
  • Doing With: support works alongside the person.
  • Doing For: support temporarily steps in when safety requires it.
The objective is not independence at all costs, nor safety at all costs. It is preserving agency across the full arc of aging.
4
Home Modifications as a Structural Equity Gap
Most states restrict HCBS waiver-funded home modifications to family-owned or participant-owned dwellings — categorically excluding adults with I/DD in provider-owned residential settings. This is the only aging population in America with no systematic aging-in-place modification pathway.
This paper proposes a dual-assessment process — evaluating the individual's aging-in-place readiness and the physical accessibility of the residential setting simultaneously. The resulting data would justify HCBS waiver amendments extending modification authority into provider-owned settings, turning a structural equity argument into a fundable, actionable pathway.
5
Core Indicators as the First Proposed Cross-State Measurement System
Core Indicators are the evidentiary bridge between pilot activity and federal recognition. Without a shared measurement infrastructure, the field cannot be compared, funded, or codified. Core Indicators define the domains states must demonstrate — from Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) implementation and aging-focused case management to housing, caregiver supports, interagency coordination, health and dementia planning, and system outcomes.
Our Federal Policy Brief
Aging Preparedness as a Federal Life-Stage Framework for Adults Aging with Lifelong Intellectual Disability
This brief is the policy backbone of this entire site. It does not simply summarize our work — it sets out the federal architecture that Aging Preparedness Solutions is advancing.
  • Proposes Systemic Aging Preparedness as a federal life-stage framework housed within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), the Older Americans Act, and Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services — modeled explicitly on the architectural logic of IDEA Part C.
  • Introduces the Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) as a new planning function — one document that follows the individual and family across systems, generated within intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) services and carried into aging and Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) systems.
  • Defines a demonstration-to-formula pathway from state pilots and managed care adaptations to federal codification and Older Americans Act formula funding.
  • Establishes Core Indicators as the evidentiary bridge between pilot activity and federal recognition — so states can demonstrate what Aging Preparedness is achieving in comparable, fundable terms.
  • Makes an urgent case for extending the Bridging Aging and Disability Networks (BADN) initiative — a federally funded, five-year campaign concluding in August 2026 — as the foundation for a broader Aging Preparedness platform, before the 17-state alliance infrastructure it built goes dormant.
The website offers an accessible view of that architecture. The Federal Policy Brief is where the full argument lives — for federal partners, funders, and state leaders who need the complete technical and evidentiary case.
How It Scales
From state variation and BADN infrastructure to a national Aging Preparedness platform.
State Readiness: Four Models, One Planning Gap
The Aging Preparedness framework does not require states to look alike. It requires them to perform the same functions. Across four very different state structures, the same planning gap repeatedly emerges — and each state illustrates a different dimension of what building toward it looks like.
New York — Commissioner-Level Commitment
In April 2025, the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities Commissioner established a formal Taskforce on Aging, explicitly linked to New York's Master Plan for Aging. The Taskforce convened in September 2025 and operates as a subcommittee of the Developmental Disabilities Advisory Council. New York's Care Coordination Organization structure — enrolling over 123,000 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities — provides a planning infrastructure that, with aging-specific adaptations, could serve as a managed care implementation model for the Individual and Family Aging Plan function.
California — The Most Developed Ground-Level Infrastructure
California has built more Regional Center-level Aging Preparedness infrastructure than any other state — dedicated Aging Transition units, Older Adult case management units, an Aging Specialist position, a statewide Aging Services Unit established in June 2025, and a required person-centered planning template with explicit aging prompts across all 21 Regional Centers beginning January 2025. Both a statewide pilot and an LA County proof-of-concept have been proposed and have formal field support. Neither will move to implementation without dedicated funding.
Connecticut — The Most Durable Cross-System Forum
Connecticut has built the most structurally durable cross-system forum of any Bridging Aging and Disability Networks state. Its Community of Practice convenes biweekly and includes the Developmental Disabilities Council, State Unit on Aging, Department of Developmental Services, Arc Connecticut, AARP Connecticut, and the Governor's Office of Policy and Management. Connecticut has also pioneered integrated supportive housing models and expanded Charting the LifeCourse tools into the aging network.
Wisconsin — Integrated Managed Care as a Reference Point
Wisconsin Family Care has served adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities alongside older adults within a single managed care structure since 2000 — now expanding to over 18,000 additional members. Wisconsin's Aging and Disability Resource Centers serve as the enrollment gateway for both populations, creating a structural proximity between aging and disability systems that most managed care states lack. The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities has formally called for a Blue Ribbon Commission on aging with disability — naming caregiver aging and death as a policy crisis requiring proactive planning.
Each of these states has built something real. None has yet implemented a formal Individual and Family Aging Plan function, a designated Cross-System Navigator role, or a warm handoff protocol connecting the intellectual and developmental disabilities planning spine to the aging system. In other words, each has elements of the framework — but none has yet built the conduit the Aging Preparedness framework proposes. The bridge is missing everywhere.
From BADN's Bridge Campaign to a Proposed Aging Preparedness Platform
The Bridging Aging and Disability Networks (BADN) initiative is a federally funded, five-year campaign running through August 2026. It demonstrated something important: when aging and disability networks are given structured opportunity to work together, they build real relationships, shared language, and cross-system trust. It also revealed something equally important: relationships alone are not enough. The planning gaps, missing roles, and absent infrastructure that BADN uncovered are precisely what the Aging Preparedness framework is designed to address. The question now is whether the infrastructure BADN built will be allowed to wind down when the campaign ends — or whether it becomes the foundation for something more durable.
Our Federal Policy Brief enters at this transition point. It proposes how the infrastructure BADN built could evolve — over time and with broader uptake — into a three-phase Aging Preparedness development arc that moves from architecture building to state demonstrations to a recognized federal framework.
Phase 1
Building the Architecture
Define the tools and standards a competent Aging Preparedness platform would require: Individual and Family Aging Plan (IFAP) guidance, Core Indicators, workforce models, managed care adaptations, and state learning communities.
Phase 2
State Demonstration Pilots
Support willing states and managed care environments in testing and refining the model through IFAP implementation, aging-focused case management, housing readiness, family navigation supports, and shared outcome data.
Phase 3
Federal Framework and Enduring Field
Use what demonstration states produce to support Administration for Community Living (ACL) guidance, Older Americans Act reauthorization, Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services alignment, national standards, and a durable federal framework for Aging Preparedness as a recognized life-stage response.
Alignment with Public Policy Frameworks
Aligning Practice with Federal and State Aging and Disability Frameworks
Federal Framework Alignment
APS will support systems-level alignment with:
  • Administration for Community Living (ACL) — the proposed federal home for Aging Preparedness
  • Older Americans Act (OAA) — the primary statutory vehicle for formula funding and life-stage recognition
  • Medicaid HCBS — the funding mechanism for IFAP-related planning, case management, and environmental modifications
  • IDEA Part C — the architectural precedent for federal planning frameworks tied to predictable life stages
  • Bridging Aging and Disability Networks (BADN) — the 17-state alliance infrastructure that the proposed Aging Preparedness development arc will build upon
  • OAA Reauthorization Act of 2025 (S.2120, Cassidy-Sanders) — the medium-term legislative vehicle
State Implementation Alignment
APS will support state-level alignment with:
  • California DDS Aging Services Unit and Regional Center infrastructure
  • State Units on Aging and Area Agencies on Aging
  • ADRC / No Wrong Door systems
  • Managed Long-Term Services and Supports (MLTSS) programs in 24 states
  • State Master Plans for Aging (e.g., New York, California)
  • Commissioner-level taskforces and cross-system Communities of Practice (e.g., NY OPWDD Taskforce on Aging, Connecticut BADN Community of Practice)
How Systems and Agencies Engage APS
Ways public systems, managed care organizations, nonprofits, and service agencies work with APS once they recognize the need.
Our Services
Policy Architecture, Strategic Planning, and Grant Writing — Working at the Intersection of Systems
APS operates at a level most consulting firms do not reach — working simultaneously across federal policy design, state system architecture, and organizational strategy. Three service areas define APS's practice, each distinct in form but mutually reinforcing in effect.
Policy Architecture & Systems Design
APS will design and advance the Systemic Aging Preparedness framework — the foundational infrastructure for a new planning era in intellectual and developmental disabilities and aging services.
  • Individual and Family Aging Plans (IFAPs): Design and pilot the core planning instrument connecting individuals, families, and public systems across the lifespan.
  • Three-node operational model: Architect the Planning Spine, Family Navigation Hub, and Aging and Disability Resource Center integration that operationalizes anticipatory planning at scale.
  • Managed care adaptation: Develop frameworks for embedding aging preparedness into managed care environments and Medicaid waiver structures.
  • Core Indicators: Define measurable outcomes that anchor cross-system accountability and learning.
  • Legal and regulatory pathway: Map the route from existing statutory authority through Older Americans Act reauthorization, enabling systemic adoption across federal and state levels.
Strategic Planning
APS will offer organizational strategic planning to nonprofits and service agencies across the intellectual and developmental disabilities and aging sectors — grounded in mission clarity, life-stage systems thinking, and implementation readiness.
  • Aging as a specialized lens: APS recognizes that most service agencies serve a broad range of age demographics. Strategic planning for aging is a niche enhancement — a value-added dimension within broader organizational planning, not a replacement for whole-agency strategy.
  • Purpose before process: Establish clear strategic intent before defining activities, ensuring operations serve mission-critical outcomes.
  • Drucker-aligned inquiry: Ground planning in fundamental questions — Who is the customer? What do they value? What constitutes meaningful results?
  • Policy-aligned innovation: Design pilots and initiatives that operate within statutory and funding frameworks while testing scalable improvements.
  • Life-stage systems thinking: Frame aging preparedness as a predictable, manageable condition requiring structural adaptation — not episodic crisis response.
Grant Writing
APS will provide full-spectrum grant development services — a tangible, immediate offering for agencies seeking to fund aging preparedness work at any stage of readiness.
  • Funder research & opportunity assessment: Identify aligned public and private funding opportunities matched to organizational capacity and strategic priorities.
  • Letters of inquiry & foundation proposals: Craft compelling narratives for foundation funders that communicate mission, evidence, and impact with clarity.
  • Federal cooperative agreement narratives: Author competitive submissions for Administration for Community Living Projects of National Significance and comparable federal funding mechanisms.
  • Medicaid waiver narrative support: Develop and strengthen waiver application narratives that advance aging preparedness within existing regulatory frameworks.
  • Grant reporting: Support ongoing compliance and learning through structured, funder-aligned progress documentation.
How Engagements Begin
A structured entry point — not a sales process.
Every APS engagement — with public systems, funders, or providers — begins with problem framing, not a proposal. The goal of the initial conversation is to understand the system, the gap, and the readiness — before scoping any work.
01
Initial Consultation: Problem Framing
A focused conversation to understand the system context, the presenting challenge, and what kind of support would be most useful — policy architecture, pilot design, or strategic planning.
02
System Scan or Strategic Assessment
A structured review of current state: existing plans, policy alignment, workforce readiness, interagency relationships, and demographic context. This produces a shared picture of where the gaps are and what the leverage points are.
03
Scoped Engagement
A defined engagement — either a multi-year pilot architecture and implementation support contract (public systems) or a facilitated strategic planning process (nonprofits and providers) — with clear phases, deliverables, and decision points built in.
Scopes of Work: Six Practice Areas
Once an engagement is scoped, work falls into one or more of six practice areas — each representing a distinct type of consulting relationship with public systems, managed care organizations, nonprofits, or service agencies.
SOW 1 – Federal Framework
Advancing the Systemic Aging Preparedness framework, IFAP design, Core Indicators, managed care adaptation, and the legal and regulatory path to federal codification.
SOW 2 – Managed Care (MCO) Engagement
Gap assessment, contract and policy standards, IFAP-equivalent planning in managed care, and workforce development for aging-IDD care management.
SOW 3 – State Demonstration Pilots (California-led)
Pilot architecture, IFAP implementation frameworks, FRC build-out, cross-system coordination design, and replication frameworks.
SOW 4 – Local / Regional Proof-of-Concept Pilots (LA County and others)
IFAP-lite workflow, Cross-System Navigator role design, ADRC partnership structure, digital platform specifications, and proof-of-concept findings.
SOW 5 – Strategic Planning Practice
Aging-focused strategic planning for nonprofits and providers — using aging preparedness as a specialized lens within broader organizational strategy.
SOW 6 – Grant Writing & Funding Strategy
Funder research, LOIs, foundation proposals, federal cooperative agreement narratives, Medicaid waiver narrative support, and grant reporting.
Documentation
Where the full technical architecture lives.
Resources & Documentation
For readers who want the full architecture behind this site, APS maintains detailed documentation:
Federal Policy Brief
Aging Preparedness as a Federal Life-Stage Framework for Adults Aging with Lifelong Intellectual Disability — the foundational white paper proposing a new federal life stage.
California I/DD Aging Preparedness Pilot Proposal
A five-year Regional Center pilot designed as a federal prototype — generating the tools, standards, and evidence base that national codification will require.
LA County ADRC Presentation
Cross-systems architecture for I/DD aging preparedness in Los Angeles — presented to the LA County ADRC Extended Partners Meeting, May 2026.
Glossary: System Acronyms
  • ACL — Administration for Community Living. Federal agency within HHS overseeing aging and disability programs, including the OAA, ADRC/No Wrong Door system, and the DD Act network.
  • ADRC — Aging and Disability Resource Center. A No Wrong Door access point for Long-Term Services and Supports, options counseling, caregiver support, and warm handoffs to community services.
  • BADN — Bridging Aging and Disability Networks. An ACL/NACDD-funded five-year initiative (through August 2026) that built cross-system relationships between aging and disability networks across 17 states.
  • HCBS — Home and Community-Based Services. Medicaid-funded services supporting individuals in home and community settings rather than institutional care.
  • I/DD — Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Conditions originating before age 22 that affect intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior.
  • IFAP — Individual and Family Aging Plan. The proposed planning instrument at the center of the APS framework. See Key Terms below.
  • IPP — Individual Program Plan (California). The federally and state-mandated planning instrument developed and maintained by Regional Centers for every eligible individual with I/DD.
  • MCO — Managed Care Organization. A health plan that coordinates and finances care for enrolled members, often under contract with a state Medicaid program.
  • MLTSS — Managed Long-Term Services and Supports. A Medicaid delivery model in which MCOs coordinate and finance LTSS for older adults and people with disabilities.
  • NTG-EDSD — National Task Group Early Detection Screen for Dementia. A validated screening tool designed specifically for adults with intellectual disabilities.
  • OAA — Older Americans Act. Primary federal legislation authorizing community-based aging services through AAAs and ADRCs, including nutrition, caregiver support, and LTSS options counseling.
  • RC — Regional Center. California's state-contracted, eligibility-based lifelong coordination and service entities for people with I/DD; 21 Regional Centers serve all 58 California counties.
Glossary: Key Aging Preparedness Terms
  • Systemic Aging Preparedness — A named field of practice — coined by APS — describing the anticipatory, coordinated, system-level response to the aging of adults with lifelong I/DD and their family caregivers. Modeled on the architectural logic of IDEA Part C.
  • Systems Fatigue — The cumulative burden experienced by families who must navigate disconnected service systems across a lifetime — restarting at every doorway, without a shared planning instrument, a warm handoff, or a designated coordinator. A coordination failure, not a family failure.
  • IFAP (Individual and Family Aging Plan) — A proposed planning instrument, adjunct to the existing IPP, that addresses the family-system questions individual-centered plans were not designed to capture: caregiver succession, housing transitions, dementia risk, and advocacy continuity. Generated on the I/DD side and passed to the aging system. One document. Two systems. No family starting over.
  • Planning Spine — Node 1 of the Three-Node Architecture. The entity holding the long-term planning relationship with an individual with I/DD — typically a Regional Center, CCO, or local IDD authority — and the node responsible for initiating the IFAP.
  • Family Navigation Hub — Node 2 of the Three-Node Architecture. A designated family-facing organization providing caregiver navigation, peer support, cross-system bridging, and succession planning — formally linked to both the Planning Spine and the ADRC. In California, Family Resource Centers fill this role.
  • Cross-System Navigator — A trained coordination professional operating on either the I/DD/FRC side or the ADRC side who helps families access services across system boundaries and executes warm handoffs between systems.
  • Three-Node Architecture — The operational model connecting the Planning Spine (I/DD system), the Family Navigation Hub (family-facing conduit), and the ADRC (aging-system continuity partner) through a shared planning instrument, warm handoff protocols, and a Shared Digital Cross-Systems Resource Platform.
  • Warm Handoff — A structured, relationship-based transfer from one system or navigator to another in which the receiving party is given context through the IFAP, the family does not have to start over, and follow-through is tracked.
  • Agency Across the Aging Continuum — A three-mode framework for preserving the experience of agency as ability changes: (1) standing ready — when individuals remain capable; (2) doing with — when abilities are changing; and (3) doing for — when immediate safety risk is present.
  • Core Indicators — A proposed cross-state measurement framework defining what Aging Preparedness pilots must demonstrate to support federal codification. The evidentiary bridge between pilot activity and federal recognition.
  • Life-Stage Framework — A federal policy structure that recognizes aging with lifelong disability as a distinct, predictable life stage warranting dedicated planning infrastructure, coordination requirements, and funding — analogous to the early childhood life-stage recognition under IDEA Part C.
  • The Conduit Problem — The structural gap between the I/DD planning spine and the aging system that does not currently exist in most states. The bridge must be deliberately built — and what it is built from will differ by state.
Contact
Bob Erio
Founder & Principal Consultant
Aging Preparedness Solutions™
📞 (310) 944-2845
Bob Erio
Founder & Principal Consultant
Aging Preparedness Solutions™ LLC
Bob Erio is a California-based systems strategist, innovator, and change agent with more than 35 years of experience working across developmental disability services, aging systems, housing, healthcare, and family support infrastructure. His work centers on helping public service systems anticipate emerging realities—particularly aging—and evolve their structures, workforce, and planning models accordingly.
Bob currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of Community Integration Services, Inc., where he oversees programs serving older adults and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including health-funded, community-based service models. His professional background includes senior operational leadership, cross-system redesign efforts, and direct involvement in the deinstitutionalization of California's state developmental centers through specialized, community-based and socially integrated housing development. This work spans housing policy, service system coordination, and implementation models that support aging in place and inclusive community living.
Early in his career, Bob participated in nonprofit leadership training by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. Peter Drucker was widely regarded as the father of Modern Management. Drucker's later focus on applying disciplined management principles to mission-driven and nonprofit organizations helped shape Bob's orientation toward clarity of purpose, prioritization, and execution. While much of the human services field appropriately emphasizes relational process and narrative, this influence reinforced Bob's belief that strong missions are best supported by concise strategy, disciplined scope, and clear separation between strategic direction and operational detail—an approach reflected in his planning and systems design work.
Through Aging Preparedness Solutions™, he works with California partners and engages national policymakers, funders, and advocates around the design and implementation of cross-system aging preparedness infrastructure.
Bob brings a creative, forward-looking perspective to systems change—combining strategic foresight with operational discipline. His approach reflects a belief that innovation and cooperation are not opposites: durable change occurs when new ideas are introduced with respect for institutional context, lived realities, and long-term accountability.