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The Living at Home Network
The Living at Home Network transforms the landscape of healthy aging across Minnesota by empowering our community-based partners with resources, advocacy and collaboration.
We envision that the Living at Home Network will be a thought-leader in community-based organizations serving older adults in Minnesota. We bring forward a unified voice to the work of advocacy, systems change and innovation needed to fulfill our mission.
Our History
In 1981, the first Living at Home/Block Nurse Program was launched by community members in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul to address and change the disjointed nature of services available for older adults. Community residents came together to discuss the needs of their senior neighbors and put in the work to develop a program model. The result was a unique nonprofit program that coordinates community volunteers and health professionals to help older adults stay safely in their homes.
Between 1981 and 1987, several Twin Cities area neighborhoods organized to start programs based on the program model, along with the first program in Greater Minnesota, Atwater Area Help for Seniors. In 1987, Living at Home/Block Nurse Program, Inc. was established as a Minnesota 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The goal was to promote the LAH/BNP model’s concept, philosophy and values statewide and effect systems change that encouraged and supported ongoing neighborhood-based health and long-term support for seniors. With funding support from a number of local and national foundations, program replication materials were created, and intensive work was done with interested communities across Minnesota to start new programs.
In 2002, Living at Home/Block Nurse Program, Inc. adopted the new name Elderberry Institute to distinguish the nonprofit organization from the 30+ programs across Minnesota.
In 2010, we restructured and renamed to become the Living at Home Network, creating a streamlined resource and advocacy organization focused on the needs of member programs statewide.
Today we continue to serve members as we have for more than 35 years. In an ever-changing world, the Network is committed to working with members and community partners to continue serving older adults across Minnesota.
Our Model
The Living at Home Network (LAHN) program model is rooted in work with older adults, their caregivers, home health and senior-serving organizations, and Minnesota communities. Citizens come together to do the hard work and organizing needed for developing this local, volunteer-driven model.
LAHN programs share the following guiding principles. Each program:
- Is governed by neighborhood/community residents within geographic boundaries they define.
- Stimulates neighborly expressions of caring and friendship.
- Provides or arranges for quality comprehensive health, social and support services for elders.
- Provides services that meet the elder’s comprehensive needs over time. Service provision is based upon need rather than ability to pay.
- Emphasizes health promotion, early intervention and management of chronic conditions.
- Conducts ongoing and proactive outreach in the community.
- Learns best practices, shares knowledge and avoids duplication of efforts within available resources.
- Maximizes current funding and develops new private and public funding sources.
