Ashley Washington is currently on maternity leave until early January, and The Catalyst Newsletter is now authored by Regan McManus, Director of Aging Initiatives.
News and resources tailored to our Senior Services community, including relevant reports, educational opportunities, policy updates and more.
LUTHERAN SERVICES IN AMERICA NEWS
Lutheran Services in America Leadership Award Nominations
Nominate your own organization or a peer Lutheran social ministry organization for one or more of our 2026 Leadership Awards. Winners will be announced at The Summit during our Annual Membership Meeting on February 3, 2026, at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club near Jacksonville, Florida.
Complete the form here and submit your nomination(s) to Kimberly Roque, Director of Leadership Development & Growth, at kroque@lutheranservices.org. If you would like to submit more than one organization for the awards, please complete a separate form for each nomination.
Lutheran Services in America Partners with RRF Foundation for Aging to Elevate Rural Family Caregiver Voices
Lutheran Services in America announces a new partnership with RRF Foundation for Aging to launch a national initiative designed to uplift the voices and lived experiences of family caregivers supporting older adults across rural and frontier communities. Aligned with our Rural Aging Action Network and the work of our members in rural communities across the country from Pennsylvania to Alaska, this effort will focus on the role of caregivers in supporting older adults to strengthen healthcare access, especially given existing workforce shortages. This partnership also complements our existing partnership with The SCAN Foundation in ensuring policy-related efforts are informed by older adults and their caregivers
Our policy team has been meeting with key committee staff from both parties, including senior staff members for the Senate Committees on Finance and Aging, to share our policy priorities and request action on workforce, health and housing, and Medicaid concerns. Additionally, Lutheran Services in America President and CEO Alesia Frerichs this week sent a letter on behalf of the network to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Oz, urging the agency to support modifications and transition time for both community engagement and provider tax provisions as H.R. 1 (the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) is implemented. We are pursuing a meeting with the Administrator to follow up on our concerns.
We will continue to work with stakeholders and decision makers on the Hill and in the Administration both on the rollout of this law, and on all our priority issues. This includes tracking movement on a potential second “budget reconciliation” bill. While it seems increasingly less likely that they would be able to build enough consensus within their party to do so, some Republican leaders, including the chairs of the Senate and House Budget committees, are still working toward drafting a second budget reconciliation package, which could have significant impacts on health care such as further cuts and negative policy changes.
PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
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We gratefully acknowledge our partners for their contributions
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