www.ohca.com FALL/WINTER 2024 The Oregon Caregiver 27 and behavioral health issues. We hear that from the workforce as well. Adult foster homes are getting large numbers of high acuity adults. This requires specialized and more intensive care, which many facilities are not equipped to provide due to staffing and training limitations. My hope is that as we continue to learn and understand the challenges of the aging population, we can look to provide preventative healthcare programs, such as early detection and management of chronic diseases, as well as increased workforce training, and improving oversight transparency for long term care facilities. What I am most interested in as an educator is how to build that pipeline from workforce to adult long term care. We must be able to prepare the workforce for the aging population. I know that is a crisis right now after serving two years on the committee. Our workforce is not ready. I am interested in building more CTE (career and technical education) programming within high schools to really identify those key areas of workforce where, in some districts, students are interested in heading directly to the workforce. This includes building apprenticeship programs, trainings, and developing a pipeline of workforce straight from high school to long term care, as an option for those who are interested in this sector. The theme of this edition is mindfulness and wellness: what are your favorite ways to wind down and relax? How about your favorite ways you like to treat yourself? I was a competitive powerlifter for a few years. I was ranked number one in the state for my age bracket and weight class, so that was a really proud moment for me. I recently just got back into it, adding powerlifting back into my very busy legislative lifestyle. It unfortunately was put on the backburner as I got busy, but now I am trying to incorporate it back. It has been really nice to just take an hour to myself and focus on building up my strength and health that way. I’m also a big foodie, so I like to treat myself to a really nice restaurant in the city or try a new place with friends and family. PROFILE
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