Highland Valley Elder Services

People Taking Charge of their Lives & Communities for Quality Long Living

Highland Valley Elder Services (HVES) has been improving the lives of elder citizens in western Massachusetts for decades. If you’re just getting to know us, there’s a lot to know!

HVES is a federally designated Area Agency on Aging (AAA) and a Massachusetts designated Aging Services Access Point (ASAP) in Florence, Mass. that works in twenty-four communities in Hampshire and Hampden counties. Its mandate is to coordinate a comprehensive local delivery system of elder services. “People Taking Charge of Their Lives and Communities for Quality Long Living” is HVES’ core mission, and it fulfills its mission in ways that bring elders, their care-givers and the broader community closer together into “caring communities.”

The agency’s governance model is one in which elders take charge of and make decisions about their own care and significantly influence the quality of caring in their communities. The model adamantly rejects the stereotype of elders as complacent about and uninvolved in the process of caring for themselves.

The CitizensMatch Caring Community Mapping Database, is an Internet-accessible service through which elders who have care needs and citizens who can meet those needs ‘strike up a match’ online. The CitizensMatch Trading MarketPlace, is a trading platform where businesses trade their products and services in Citizen Dollars, which expands elder care by providing economic incentives and rewards for community-wide involvement in elder care.

HVES programs and services also include senior companion services, protective services (including the review and investigation of elder abuse and neglect), ombudsman services, care coordination and nursing services, money management services, and counseling, health promotion and recreation services. HVES also operates 11 dining centers that provide approximately 2,500 meals each month in congregate settings and more than 4,000 home-delivered meals per month.

Highland Valley Elder Services has a profound effect on the health and welfare of elder citizens in western Massachusetts. Through a variety of programs, HVES provides information and referrals, as well as homemaker, chore, personal care, social day care and respite care services.

Yours in People Taking Charge of their Lives and Communities for Quality Long Living,

Robert V. Gallant

About Us

The role of Highland Valley Elder Services in the communities it serves is to assure that federal, state and local resources combine to:

• Provide information and support to elders and their care givers
• Create and coordinate programs and services for elders
• Support the work of elders in caring for themselves
• Develop programs and services that increase the capacity of care givers
• Identify and serve new, eligible participants.