The History

The state of Illinois embraced culture change early, in 1999. Since then, several thousand consumers, advocates, nursing facility representatives and licensing surveyors have been trained on culture change values and principles through the efforts of the Illinois Department of Aging State Long Term Care Ombudsman Program and the Illinois Association of Long Term Care Ombudsmen, with initial funding from the state's Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) funds to 'enhance Illinois' pioneer efforts in culture change'.

This infusion of culture change education, coupled with Oakbrook, Illinois being the site of the 2002 national Pioneer Network Conference, led to coalition planning meetings in August 2002 and April 2003. The first organizational meeting of an Illinois culture change coalition was in November 2003, led by the state's long term care provider associations, the ombudsman program and Illinois area agencies on aging.

Since that time, the Illinois Pioneer Coalition was successful in securing other two year grants through the Illinois Department on Aging - Office of State Ombudsman with the Illinois Department of Public Health CMP funds.  The components of the grants activities included continued statewide education, grants to regional ombudsman programs for regional culture change coalition building, a grant to build the statewide coalition and a grant for culture change research to develop a data base of pioneer practices and outcomes through December, 2005. The statewide coalition hired a part time Coalition Facilitator. This facilitator led the Coalition to its present state.

The statewide coalition continues to develop activities based on the task teams with comprehensive meetings informing each group of task development.  A cohesive effort by all members of the coalition was the planning and implementation of a statewide Pioneer Summit held in Springfield, Illinois, in October of 2004 and again in 2005.

At a meeting held after hours during the 2005 IPC Summit, Coalition members present adopted By-Laws that were developed by two volunteer Coalition members with much input from the entire active Coalition and recommended them for legal review. Per the proposed By-laws a Board of Directors was formed. Following acceptance of the Board of Directors a slate of officers was elected.