The initial step in an effort aimed at addressing transportation and service delivery challenges in northern Maine, enhancing operational efficiency and supporting the Agency’s commitment to protecting seniors from fraud, is finding early success in redesigning how Aroostook County Action Program serves customers, especially those in the region’s most rural communities.
The introduction of a company vehicle fleet at ACAP in 2024, was a significant step toward improving service delivery, and was the first measure in a multi-pronged effort to re-engineer how services are delivered to County residents. The next step will happen later this spring when a new mobile service unit rolls out, allowing the Agency to enhance service delivery to smaller more rural and remote County communities, where ACAP does not have a customer service facility nearby.
“Serving a County geographically larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, with a population of fewer than 68,000 people living mostly in communities of less than a few thousand and even a few hundred people with very limited access to transportation services, is quite challenging,” said Jason Parent, ACAP executive director/CEO. “During the pandemic, when we moved our services to exclusively remote and over the phone for several months, we realized a significant reduction in the number of ‘no shows’ for key appointments such as energy and nutrition assistance and workforce development touch base meetings with agency coaches. In surveys during the shutdown, and in the months afterwards, customers told us phone appointments did not require them to arrange a ride into one of our service center locations, which was often an impediment to making a scheduled in-person appointment.”
The problem, according to ACAP officials, with moving solely to appointments over the phone was that as the world re-opened following the initial months of the pandemic,program funding sources returned to requiring in-person meetings with customers. Beyond that, even in cases where appointments were allowed to continue remotely, Agency officials were concerned that the missed opportunity to connect face-to-face regularly with customers, especially vulnerable seniors and families with young children, could result in missed opportunities to assess them for other potentially problematic challenges like malnutrition, hypothermia and isolation.
“It is not uncommon to have members of our ACAP Team, who deliver in-person direct services to customers, identify key basic human needs other than that our customers, especially the most vulnerable, are turning to us for at that specific appointment. Especially as our Agency has embraced a Whole Family and Comprehensive Service Delivery Model, our intent with any and all customer interactions is to more robustly assess all needs from food and housing security to assisting with connecting to employment and education resources, and others for working age adults,” said Parent.
In the initial phase of the initiative, ACAP, by providing staff with reliable and branded vehicles to deliver services county-wide, is ensuring that they can reach job sites and customers promptly and efficiently. The vehicles not only enhance operational capabilities and are more financially cost effective, but also ensure that employees do not have to bear the wear and tear on their personal vehicles. When the price of gas spiked during the pandemic, ACAP had team members leave employment citing the cost of filling up their personal vehicles and the wear and tear made the mileage reimbursement fall short of bridging the gap in their personal expenses.
The initial mileage numbers, since the first of the Agency fleet vehicles was brought on-line in May of last year through the end of January, certainly attests to the heavy remote delivery of services by the ACAP Team. In just those nine months, ACAP staff logged over 43,000 miles on fleet vehicles delivering services such as home weatherization, WIC (Women, Infant and Children) nutrition services, workforce development, oral health, prevention, community education, among others. Given that not all of the vehicles were online in May, Agency officials are expecting that number to be even greater in 2025.
Additionally, in an era where fraud, especially that which is perpetrated on the senior population is more rampant than ever, the Agency had begun to hear from customers uncertain if the person coming into their driveway and home to perform services, like home energy audits for weatherization and assessments for home repairs, was legitimately an ACAP team member. The new fleet of vehicles prominently featuring ACAP branding, leaves little doubt and reassures seniors that the person coming into their home indeed works for the Agency.
The next phase in the re-engineered remote delivery of services by ACAP in Aroostook County will come later this spring when the Agency rolls out a new mobile service unit, which is essentially an office on wheels. ACAP intends to do comprehensive intake for services like the Home Energy Assistance and WIC programs, workforce development and others in smaller County communities using the retrofitted recreational vehicle. Additionally, programs like prevention services and early care and education will use the mobile service unit to conduct outreach activities in communities across the region.
ACAP is a non-profit organization that works to improve the quality of life for families and individuals across Aroostook County, Maine. The organization offers a range of services, including childcare, early education, and family support programs.
