The Aging, Caregiving, and Elder Safety Network (ACES) at UMass Boston is the new home for nationally recognized work led by Dr. Lees Haggerty, and her team to improve dementia care, support caregivers, and prevent and address elder mistreatment.
ACES brings established initiatives including the National Dementia Care Collaborative and the National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment, together under a broader network designed to connect research, practice, policy, education, implementation, and lived experience.
The projects continue. The partnerships continue. And through ACES, this work has a platform to grow—creating new opportunities to translate evidence into practice, spread and scale effective approaches, pursue new research, and improve care, safety, and quality of life for older adults and the people who support them.
ACES is new, but the work behind it is not.
Before joining UMass Boston, Dr. Lees Haggerty and her team led nationally recognized initiatives at Education Development Center, inc. focused on some of the most complex and interconnected challenges facing older adults, caregivers, healthcare organizations, and communities.
That work includes the National Dementia Care Collaborative (NDCC), which helps organizations implement evidence-based comprehensive dementia care programs, and the National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment, which brings together experts and organizations working to improve the prevention, identification, and response to elder mistreatment.
With Dr. Lees Haggerty move to the Department of Gerontology at UMass Boston, this work entered a new chapter. ACES provides a home where these established projects can continue while also creating space for new research, partnerships, and initiatives across aging, caregiving, dementia care, and elder safety.
ACES is not replacing the work that came before it. It is bringing that work together, building on what has been learned, and creating a foundation for greater collaboration, reach, and impact.
Two established national initiatives anchor the work of ACES today.
Together, they demonstrate the Network's commitment to producing rigorous research and helping evidence move into practice where it can improve people's lives.
The National Dementia Care Collaborative helps organizations implement evidence-based, comprehensive dementia care. Through implementation support, shared learning, practical resources, and collaboration, NDCC works to strengthen dementia care and help effective approaches reach more people living with dementia and their caregivers.
The National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment brings together experts and partners to strengthen how healthcare and social service systems prevent, identify, and respond to elder mistreatment. Its work connects research, policy, implementation, and practice to help effective approaches become part of mainstream care.
This work has been supported by The John A. Hartford Foundation, whose investment in improving the care of older adults has helped advance these initiatives and their impact.
ACES connects research, practice, policy, and lived experience to improve dementia care, strengthen caregiver support, promote elder safety, and advance the health and well-being of older adults
High-quality research is essential, but it is not the endpoint. ACES both conducts research and works to help evidence travel beyond studies and publications into practical tools, training, policies, partnerships, and approaches that people and organizations can use in real-world settings.
By bringing established projects together with new research and opportunities for collaboration, ACES can share lessons across areas that have traditionally operated in siloes to accelerate the movement from evidence to implementation, spread, scale, and impact.
Connecting Issues That Are Connected in Real Life
Dementia care, caregiving, aging, and elder safety are often addressed through separate programs, disciplines, and systems. But that is not how people experience them.
Changes related to dementia can affect caregiving needs and safety. The availability of caregiver support can influence the health and well-being of an entire family. Healthcare, social services, workplaces, communities, and public policy can all shape how people experience aging.
ACES creates opportunities to look across these issues rather than at each one in isolation.
By connecting projects, people, evidence, and lived experience, the Network can identify shared challenges, learn across disciplines, strengthen partnerships, and develop approaches that better reflect the realities older adults and caregivers experience every day.
A New Home for the Next Chapter
Dr. Lees Haggerty, joined UMass Boston as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Gerontology, bringing with her an established portfolio of work and partnerships focused on dementia care and elder mistreatment.
UMass Boston offers a natural home for the next chapter of that work. Its depth of expertise in gerontology, aging research, policy, education, and community engagement creates opportunities to connect ACES projects with faculty, students, researchers, practitioners, community partners, and new areas of inquiry.
ACES builds from that foundation: preserving the identity, relationships, and momentum of existing initiatives while creating opportunities for new research, projects, partnerships, and approaches to emerge.
ACES builds on years of research, implementation, partnership, and learning while creating new opportunities to increase the reach and impact of that work.
Generate and contribute to rigorous research that addresses important questions across aging, caregiving, dementia care, and elder safety.
Move evidence beyond research and publications by translating what we learn into useful tools, strategies, training, policies, resources, and approaches.
Learn what it takes to move effective approaches into different organizations, systems, and communities so that promising practices can reach more people.
Bring together researchers, clinicians, policymakers, practitioners, advocates, caregivers, community partners, and people with lived experience to share knowledge, challenge assumptions, and shape what comes next.
Together, we will continue advancing practical, evidence-informed approaches that support older adults, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and organizations.
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Advancing evidence into action for older adults, caregivers, and healthcare systems.
Advancing evidence into action for older adults, caregivers, and healthcare systems.
