Aging Texas Well Advisory Committee

Meeting dates for 2009-2010
Meeting Agendas and Minutes
Advisory Committee Members
About the Committee

Meeting dates for 2010-2011

Aug. 25, 2010
Nov. 3, 2010
Feb. 23, 2011
May 25, 2011
Aug. 24, 2011
Nov. 2, 2011

Note: All meetings are held on Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. – 11 a.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room, Suite 652, at the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, 701 W. 51st St., Austin, Texas, 78751.

Meeting Agendas and Minutes (In PDF format)

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Name	Occupational Area	Organization
Michèle J. Saunders, MD Chairperson	Academic	UT Health Science Center at San Antonio & South Texas Geriatric Research Education Center
Cameron Bell	Workforce	Texas Workforce Commission
Bruce Bower	Advocate/consumer	Texas Senior Advocacy Coalition
Andrew Crocker	Academic	Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M System
Chris Fowler	Education	Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
Amanda Fredriksen	Advocate/consumer	AARP
Robin Hayes	Provider-residential setting	Trisun Healthcare
Lori Henry	Protections	Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
Carlos Higgins	Advocate/consumer	Texas Silver Haired Legislature
Karen Johnson	Faith/non-profit	United Ways of Texas
Pearl Merritt	Provider-community setting	Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Kate Moore	Housing	Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs
Susan Paynter	Faith/non-profit	Baptist General Convention of Texas
Dan Pruett	Aging network	Meals on Wheels and More
Susan Ristine	Physical/mental health	Texas Department of State Health Services
Clare Seagraves	Policy analysis and program coordination	Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Jerry Thompson	Community supports	Corporation for National and Community Service Texas State Office
Ann Woods	Community supports	Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services
Carol Zernial	Faith/non-profit	WellMed Charitable Foundation

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About the Committee

Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order creating the Aging Texas Well Advisory Committee and Action Plan. The order, which was issued in April 2005, formalizes the Aging Texas Well Initiative and asks the department to continue its work to identify and discuss aging policy issues, guide state government readiness, and promote increased community preparedness for an aging Texas population.

Under the executive order, DADS is directed to form an advisory committee to advise the department and to make recommendations to state leadership on implementation of the Aging Texas Well Initiative. DADS will create and disseminate a comprehensive and effective working plan to identify and discuss aging policy issues, guide state government readiness and promote increased community preparedness for an aging Texas.

DADS will also lead a planning effort to ensure the readiness of all Texas state agencies to serve an aging population by identifying issues, current initiatives, and future needs.

Committee biographies

Michèle J. Saunders is a professor of Medicine, Dentistry and Dental Hygiene at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She also is the director of the South, West and Panhandle Consortium Geriatric Education Center and co-director of the Geriatric Medicine and Dentistry Fellowship Program.

Saunders was the first development board professor of clinical dentistry and chief of the division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at that institution from 1993 to 2002. She also is associate director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at the Audie L. Murphy Division of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System in San Antonio.

She is a triple alumna of the University of Pennsylvania — bachelor's degree in 1973, doctor of dental medicine degree in 1980, and master's degree 1981. In 1982, she was one of the first in the United States to be awarded a two-year geriatric fellowship by the Department of Veterans Affairs. During the fellowship, she earned her master's of public health degree from the Loma Linda University School of Public Health and began serving on the Board of the American Society for Geriatric Dentistry (ASGD). She later served on the Board of the Federation of Special Care Dentistry, and became ASGD president in 1993. Saunders produced the ASGD manuals and audiovisuals that guide dental office teams and nursing facility staff on how to implement dental programs in nursing facilities; these materials have been adopted by the World Health Organization for use in developed countries.

Saunders is a national and international expert in

geriatric health education;
faculty training in education, curriculum and program development, and evaluation;
minority elderly health promotion; and
is a consultant to a number of state and federal programs and national associations.

She has conducted research on the oral health status of minority and veteran elders, and, from 1993-2001, she directed the $3.7 million Research Center on Oral Health in Aging study of oral health among San Antonio's elderly population titled "Oral Health: San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging." Saunders is a past chair of the Clinical Medicine section of the Gerontological Society of America and section editor of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

In 2003, she was named the Joseph C. Valley Gerontological Professional of the Year for "exceptional contributions to promoting gerontology and geriatrics through research, education, clinical training, and community outreach." This award was given to Saunders for her "outstanding contributions to geriatrics, and especially to geriatric dentistry locally [in Texas] as well as nationally," to recognize her "distinguished professional achievements and to honor [her] as a pioneer in the field of geriatric dentistry."

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For more information about Aging Texas Well, please e-mail the Aging Texas Well coordinator at: AgingTexasWellCoordinator@dads.state.tx.us.

Updated: August 19, 2010