**Administrator Award

Donna Kay, Program Manager, Adult Day Care Program, Polk County, Bartow, Florida

This award recognizes adult day center administrators/directors who have demonstrated outstanding leadership within their centers and their communities. This award is given to an administrator or director who has given at least five years of service to an adult day services center.

Donna Kay, Adult Day Care Program Manager, has been part of the Polk County Adult Day Care Program since 1989. In her 19 years of providing support and delivery of adult day services, she always demonstrates integrity and exhibits commitment, and has proven her dedication and compassion in advocating for frail, vulnerable, aging and "at risk" citizens of Polk County.

As the Adult Day Care Program Manager and Administrator of the three Adult Day Care Centers, Ms. Kay has developed partnerships with several area hospitals, service provider agencies, area physicians, and diversion programs to provide community resources and support. Ms. Kay has set up caregiver support groups that are housed out of the adult day care centers for the community, as well as caregiver training and community outreach programs. Ms. Kay recognized the need for the provision of personal care for the participants that attended the three adult day care centers; therefore, she partnered with Polk County elderly services and rather than ordering in-home personal care services for the adult day care patients, they receive that service daily at the centers.

Ms. Kay established the Polk County Standard of Care to ensure that patients' daily care is first and foremost in all three centers. The Polk County Standard of Care serves as a training policy for all adult day care staff, which includes procedures for social activities, meals, toileting, patients' special needs, staff training, and caregiver/patient/staff/supervisor relationship. This policy is made available to all patients, caregivers and adult day care management and staff.
 
Ms. Kay always exhibits motivation and enthusiasm and possesses the ability to turn challenges into opportunities. For example, she designed a plan that would allow for participants to become enrolled in the adult day care program when funding sources were not available. This allowed for people in need of adult day care to not go without community-based care, thus preventing early long term placement. Also, young patients who had been told that their full potential of rehabilitation had been reached have attended the adult day care centers, and through the provision of committed, caring adult day care staff, these patients have been rehabilitated further to become semi-independent, thus achieving a better quality of life.

Ms. Kay's commitment to excellence has resulted in acclaim and strong credibility for the Polk County Adult Day Care Program. She has been recognized by the county manager for being results oriented, and for her excellent leadership and collaboration, demonstrated by her staff at the three adult day care centers which allowed for deficiency-free ratings from the state of Florida agency for health care administration (AHCA) for all three centers. AHCA has requested to use the Polk County adult day care program as a model for the state of Florida when new facilities are being opened. Ms. Kay is dedicated to excellence and continually promotes the "Best Practices for the Polk County Adult Day Care Program."

Ms. Kay has made substantial contributions to successfully orchestrating a comprehensive adult day care program plan. She prepares, directs and operates the adult day care program within budgetary guidelines. Not only has she strategized a marketing campaign with limited funding, but she has also proposed and implemented a business plan for a private pay component, which will allow for an additional community-based service as an alternative to costly nursing home placement.

Ms. Kay is currently pursuing a plan to have an additional Adult Day Care Center developed in another underserved area of Polk County.  She plans to meet with representatives from the Johnnie B. Byrd Senior Alzheimer's Center & Research Institute in the future to explore opportunities to partner for research.

In 2004, Polk County experienced four natural disasters, during which Ms. Kay operated a special needs shelter, coordinating and ensuring that the three adult day care centers were up and running shortly after each disaster in order to provide a continuity of care. Ms. Kay worked closely with Polk County Emergency Management, the Department of Health, and various other county entities to utilize the adult day care centers as special needs shelters. The adult day care centers were officially designated special needs shelters in 2006.

Written by Joy L. Johnson, with the Polk County Board of County Commissioners, Bartow, FL