Officials sign a Memorandum of Understanding between Milford Wellness Village and Delaware State University to create a Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program

On Friday, July 26, officials from Milford Wellness Village and Delaware State University signed a Memorandum of Understanding to partner with a Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (GWAP). The program is designed to provide multiple degree offerings in programs designed to aid the older population in Delaware.

I welcome everyone here today to Milford Wellness Village. This is the home of, right now, of 22 healthcare and wellness providers that is moving and growing, delivering services to all ages and the creation of over 650 new jobs,” Meir Gelley, President of Education, Health and Research International Inc., the parent company of Milford Wellness Village, said. “We are gathered here this morning for the launching of this new GWEP, Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program initiative with Del State University, partnering with EHRI, otherwise, Education, Health Research International.”

Gelley explained that this project had been in the planning stages for almost four years, almost since EHRI took over the former Milford Memorial Hospital campus on Clarke Avenue in Milford. Rabbi Y. Halberstam, Director of Public Affairs, explained that this was a goal of the organization from the beginning.

“Today is a historic day for southern Delaware. As Mr. Gelley mentioned, today is the culmination of a dream that began in 2019 when the old Bayhealth hospital was reimagined as the Milford Wellness Village to fill an education gap in southern Delaware, EHRI has been looking for the perfect education partner and today, thanks to the vision of Dr Tony Allen and Dr. Gwen Scott-Jones and the wonderful leadership at Del State, we have found our educational partner Delaware State, University,” Rabbi Halberstam said. “This program will greatly enhance the educational landscape of southern Delaware, The program will focus on geriatric workforce training at Milford Wellness Village”

According to Rabbi Halberstam, Delaware State University will provide both senior-focused training as well as clinical rotations at Milford Wellness Village service providers.

“As the saying goes, it takes a village. In our case, we like to say it takes a village to create the Milford Wellness Village,” Rabbi Halberstam said. “To that end, EHRI has received support from many elected officials across the first state, and while it would be impossible to mention all, I would like to highlight Senator Tom Carper, who was instrumental in advocating for this federal grant, as he has done for many previous EHR I initiatives.”

Dr. Tony Allen, President of Delaware State University, stated that Senator Carper was instrumental in Milford Wellness Village and the university in receiving a $5 million federal grant to create the program.

“What could be called divine providence, in 2021, Bill Strickland, who was chairing the Wesley College board then, and his father, who was, I think, the Founding Chair of the old Milford Hospital, said to me, “you need to come see the wellness village.” And I brought my Provost there and talked to Meir and the rabbi. And all of us were saying this partnership must work out. Meir, in particular, focusing on how this must work out. And I said, “Do we have any resources that we can attend to this?” Both parties said, “No, but we will figure it out.” And we stopped the conversation for about a year and a half, actually. And then we acquired Wesley College. And when we acquired Wesley College, we set up the Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Just to give you a sense, in Wesley’s last year, they had about 600 faculty, staff and students. Today, the Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Sciences has about 2,500.”

Dr. Gwen Scott-Jones, the founding dean of the college, was given the task of making the program at Milford Wellness Village a reality.

“And I can tell you that if you put a person like Gwen Scott-Jones with a person like Meir, some things are going to happen. And I am proud to say that things have happened for us here. It’s a special, unique opportunity for Delaware State, because this is the first time we will have significant presence in Sussex County. And we believe that we are the most diverse, substantive, contemporary proudly HBCU in the country, and that means that we can be all over the state, not just Delaware,State University, but Delaware state’s university,” Dr. Allen said. “So, this gives us unique opportunity from a couple of perspectives. You’ve already heard about our clinical opportunities. I was just telling a reporter our students want more opportunities earlier in their matriculation process, and that’s what they deserve. And oftentimes there are simple barriers that you might not imagine, like transportation. Through this grant, we figured that out. We created more substantive, political, experiential opportunities than we ever had before just through this program, and we’re building capacity for the future with a population that we should care about.”

Dr. Allen introduced Senator Tom Carper, calling him a friend and one of Del State’s biggest benefactors.

“I recall my first visit to the campus of Delaware State College. I had just gotten out of the Navy after serving in the Vietnam War, serving three tours over there. I came to Delaware right at the end of the war and got an MBA at the University of Delaware,” Senator Carper said, joking that he was waitlisted at Del State. “After I graduated, I said, where am I going to go to work? And I thought about moving to  other places I’ve been.  I was born in West Virginia, grow up in Virginia, went Ohio State, but I said, I think I want to stay here in Delaware. And I when I had been here in Delaware, out of graduate school for like a month, I ended up being the treasurer and fundraiser for the congressional campaign.”

Senator Carper recalled being pitted against Pete duPont, one of the “wealthiest men on the planet,” and going to see a young man by the name of Joe Biden who was then only in his early 30s.

“I was 29 years old and nobody wanted to run for state treasurer, so, I said if nobody wants to run, I will run. We had no money, I literally, I took every dime saved in my name and bought every billboard  where I could be seen. I gave up my job at the Division of Economic Development, which was in a building on the Delaware State campus. I can remember after having been on the campus of the University of Delaware, they had everything, beautiful, gorgeous campus, well-funded, and Delaware State had so little and I said, this is not right. Later on we had the opportunity to transform that campus.”

Senator Carper recalled how he walked through Milford during his campaign for treasurer and handing out flyers to employees as they came to work at Milford Memorial Hospital. When he learned about the new campus being constructed outside of Milford, he worried about what would happen with the old hospital.

“A lot of times when this happens, the building is left empty and collaspses, it is a terrible thing. And then guess who comes along? Meir Gelley, an amazing man with a vision and the key to getting things done. That is something I have learned that the key to getting things done doesn’t matter who gets credit for stuff, as long as you can work together and share the credit and, frankly, share the challenges,” Senator Carper said. “One of the reasons why we kind of punch above our weight in Delaware, in terms of federal money, getting money for folks in Kent and Sussex is Lisa [Blunt Rochester] and Chris [Coons] and I are a team. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit. We share the credit for Delaware. “

Pointing out that he is 77 years old and still does 100 pushups every morning, Senator Carper explained that workforce development programs designed to help people his age were critical.

“We need workforce training for those who work with people my age and the age of Joe Biden to make sure that we have the ability to continue to be not just functional, but able to make contribution in different roles. And it’s, it’s a team effort, and part of that team is Del State, and part of that, that that team is going to get better and more effective, helping a lot more folks, older folks like Joe, like me to help us to be relevant and happy and able to continue to contribute to society,” Senator Carper said. “To be honest, $5 million in the whole scheme of things in Washington DC doesn’t sound like a lot when you’re looking at the federal budget, but here in Delaware and Milford, it’s a lot.”

Dr. Scott-Jones thanked the senator for his support and explained that the awarding of the $5 million grant was quite an undertaking stating that the application had to be submitted just three weeks from when they began working on it.

“I’d like to take this time to thank the Milford Wellness Village for having the foresight to partner with us at Delaware State University. Additionally, I would like to thank all parties involved for providing support in writing and the submission of the grant, my team often would say to me “you’re taking some blood from us. You’re taking some blood from us.” I think Rabbi, I think we really got to get to know each other on a regular basis, working six, seven o’clock at night. I will say that as leaders, we actually showed our team this is what it’s all about. He will call me. I will call him,” Dr. Scott-Jones said. “I said, we’ll get it to you. We actually did some writing ourselves. We changed some documentation. We pulled up our sleeves to get this done. So, thank you. We had approximately three weeks to define a plan of how we would implement a geriatric work enhancement program that would educate and train the healthcare, supportive care workforces, how to care for older adults with dementia or other health related disorders through an inner professional and community collaboration approach that wasn’t easy to think or design. But we did it.”

Dr. Scott Jones explained that others in the industry questioned how she could complete and successfully receive a $5 million grant in just three weeks.

“I said, we stayed on it from the time we started, weekends, nights. I think I called Tracy Harp all way up 12 o’clock at night asking questions about nursing, what to put in the documentation. When the staff had to stop, me and Rabbi started writing. So we did a great job this partnership with the Milford Wellness Village, Education, Health and Resource International as well as Delaware State University are creating a stronger footprint in Sussex County,” Dr. Scott-Jones said. “This will allow our students an opportunity to have excellent clinical experiences and training opportunities. Delaware State University’s Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Science will have allocated space here at the Milford Wellness Village that will allow us to provide a clinical simulation experience and professional development opportunities for our students and other healthcare providers who will be participating in the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program. Delaware State University and Education Health Resource international will be collaborating to develop a certificate program that will focus on age friendly and dementia friendly care. That’s extremely important. It’s extremely important that we train individuals how to take care of individuals while they’re in their golden years. To this end, I’m very excited about this partnership to see the geriatric workforce enhancement program as a cutting edge program, and so that we can take this approach to learn how to care for our older adults here in this great state of Delaware, and also to continue our research and how we can try to eradicate dementia.”

After the presentation, officials signed the MOU establishing the Geriatric Workplace Enhancement Program at Milford Wellness Village.

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