On August 29^th, ADvancing States honored leaders in aging and disability services with the Arthur S. Flemming and Katie Beckett Awards. ADvancing States and its board of directors are proud to announce that Steven Eiken, a long-time researcher on Long-term Services and Supports was posthumously presented with the Arthur S. Flemming award, and Henry Claypool, a former HHS official and long-time advocate, was given the Katie Beckett Award.

The Arthur S. Flemming Award

ADvancing States is proud to honor Steven Eiken with the 2018 Flemming award. Steve’s work chronicled the nation’s journey from one based on institutional care to HCBS and played a huge role in demonstrating the successes that states have made in ensuring that older adults and individuals with disabilities are able to live in the most integrated settings according to their preferences, as well as highlighting the areas where additional effort is necessary. Steve wrote dozens of reports describing promising practices to improve LTSS, with topics including comprehensive systems reform, rebalancing, money follows the person, and the widely read and shared Medicaid LTSS expenditure report.

The National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services shared their thoughts on Steve, saying “Steve is widely acknowledged for his fine data mind. His ability to work within the complex web of Medicaid data was unparalleled, but that only shows one side of his brilliance – the perhaps more important side was his very keen recognition that there were people behind those numbers. He knew that his data told a story not only about financing of services but of lives of people. He recognized that for each year that balancing became more in reach for our service system, more people were living in their own homes and communities, forging relationships and creating lives. He was a wonderful listener and we saw first-hand how his interest in hearing people made a difference – not only on a grand, national scale (which it did!) but on an individual level. Whether working with colleagues or in large groups including families and self-advocates, Steve was first and foremost a wonderful, caring human being, and his brilliance shined through in his personal interactions as it does through his immense contributions to the story of our field.”

The staff at the AARP public policy institute shared that “Steve’s work has made a tremendous impact to the field of aging and our collective efforts to change long-term services and supports in order to improve lives. Steve and his colleagues’ reports on Medicaid long-term services and supports allowed organizations such as AARP to shine a bright light on the need to better align public funds with people’s desire to age in their homes and communities for as long as possible. Steve’s knowledge of state initiatives and programmatic details was necessary to go beyond the numbers and really understand what was happening in Medicaid long-term services and supports. This work has informed policy changes at the state level and empowered advocates across the country, resulting in system changes that benefited the lives of thousands of people.”

Steve Eiken passed away unexpectedly on June 9, 2018. The entire HCBS and LTSS field lost a true champion for improving our systems and, more importantly, a great friend and colleague. We will miss him both for his contributions to the research around rebalancing as well as for his important thoughts on policy and programmatic implications for our services and supports.

About the Award

Since 1978, ADvancing States has chosen one individual in the field of Aging to receive the annual Arthur S. Flemming Award. Dr. Flemming spent years in public service, culminating with his role as the U.S. Commissioner on Aging. He served as the Commissioner on Aging until 1978. The core of what is now commonly called the national Aging Network, consisting of state agencies on aging, sub-state area agencies on aging and thousands of service providers grew out of his leadership. Dr. Flemming’s role in aging is well-known, but he was equally well known for his role in fighting for civil rights. Indeed, Dr. Flemming served as chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1974 to 1981. As depicted by those who knew and worked with him both in public life and in his many private roles, Mr. Flemming possessed a rare and perhaps unequaled combination of bureaucratic competence, compassion for the needy, and ability to inspire those around him to action.

The Katie Beckett Award

The ADvancing States Board of Directors is excited to recognize Henry Claypool with the 2018 Katie Beckett award. For over 30 years, Henry has worked on disability and healthcare policy together with technological innovation to improve the nation’s health care delivery system and enhance quality of life for those living with a disability. In 2013, Henry was appointed by the President to serve on the Federal Commission on Long Term Care. He was the founding Principal Deputy Administrator at the Administration for Community Living, and also served as the Director of the Office on Disability at the US Department of Health and Human Services. His public service also includes working as the Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the late 1990s when the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act was passed and the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision was handed down.

Martha Roherty, ADvancing States’s Executive Director, commented, “Henry has played a crucial role in our nation’s shift toward integrated, person-centered services and supports for all individuals. As a key founder of the Administration for Community Living, he was able to create an entity in HHS that is responsible for ensuring the promise of Olmstead and protecting the rights, independence, and dignity of older adults and people with disabilities. Thousands of people across the country are able to live better, happier lives because of his tireless work and advocacy.”

Henry has a passion for technology and his work in the technology sector includes policy development for the deployment of self-driving cars, leveraging administrative data sets to improve the quality and efficiency of certain services, and exploring ways that connected devices can improve community integration and quality of life for people with disabilities. He serves as a Senior Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum. He is affiliated faculty at the University of California San Francisco where he works as the policy director for Community Living Policy Center.

About the award

Born with medical support needs, Katie spent the first years of her life in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Though her family and doctors wanted Katie to live at home, there was at that time, no Medicaid coverage for medical services provided in the community.  Fighting to bring her daughter home, Julie Beckett challenged this policy, and was ultimately successful in carving out an exception in the Medicaid program that allows children with disabilities to receive services in their homes and communities. Thanks to her mother’s tireless advocacy, on December 19, 1981, Katie moved home. Known as the “Katie Beckett Waiver” since its inception in 1982, this monumental policy shift has allowed more than 500,000 children to live at home and have access to the treatment they need. Since 2011, ADvancing States has chosen an individual whose work has promoted the ideals of independence, dignity, and self-determination for individuals with disabilities to receive the Katie Beckett award.