A Summer In Action: Highlights from Peaceful Living
Medicaid Update
Peaceful Living provides Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) through Medicaid dollars, and like many of you, we have been closely following the news regarding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) from the beginning of debate through passage. The OBBBA is the enactment of President Trump’s budget priorities and includes roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next 10 years amongst other changes. History and research show that federal cuts to Medicaid tend to lead to state cuts in HCBS funding and programs (Health Affairs).
Broadly, many changes in the OBBBA are not effective immediately and will not begin until around roughly the time of the mid-term elections next year. Between now and that time, we will be keeping an ear out for the detailed rule-making that will instruct how these changes take effect in detail. For those interested, the Kaiser Family Foundation has a tracker that details the implementation of the bill.
One area of major concern to providers like Peaceful Living is limits or reductions in funding for Medicaid services through limits and reductions to “Provider Taxes”. These are healthcare-related taxes implemented by states to supplement funding from the federal government for Medicaid-authorized services (Kaiser Family Foundation). Because Pennsylvania is a Medicaid Expansion state, it will now be required to reduce provider taxes by 0.5% each year until it is at 3.5% from the current Provider Tax rate of 6%.
Other provisions that we are monitoring are increased administrative burden for Medicaid enrollment (Congressional Budget Office Director’s Letter), disruption to rules scheduled to take effect intended to make enrollment easier, and cost sharing requirements for Medicaid expansion recipients that would require copays for health care services. We are also watching changes to work requirements in the bill during final rule making; however, the bill does state that medically frail individuals, including adults with intellectual disabilities, are exempt from the requirements.
To plan for the future, Peaceful Living is critically examining our current operations and working to streamline processes and organizational structure to increase efficiency and make the best use of our company talent and resources. We are considering paths for greater revenue generation as we head toward Performance Based Contracting. We continue to connect with PAR, ANCOR, and other sources to understand the bill’s impact, inform our advocacy, and guide our decision making.
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We are grateful that many of you have been able to meet Mary Ellen Farber, Peaceful Living and Friendship Community’s CEO, at our meet-and-greet event and through other opportunities. With that said, we have received some questions about Peaceful Living’s affiliation with Friendship Community and wanted to clarify the agencies’ relationship.
Peaceful Living has contracted with Friendship Community under a shared services agreement for two positions: a CEO and a CFO. The shared services agreement was put into place primarily to provide leadership support and expertise to Peaceful Living, but also to give time to explore what further affiliation might look like between Peaceful Living and Friendship Community. The agreement is for one year, which started in May 2025. As we march forward, leaders and board members from both organizations will continue to critically examine what opportunities exist that would ultimately strengthen both organizations in our joint missions of serving people with intellectual disabilities.
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Mary Ellen and Matt will be taking time to visit each of our programs in person to meet with staff and families. It is also a goal is to give families the chance to connect with Peaceful Living leadership, especially those who may not yet know in their new roles like Dan Ulrich, Tenika Christian, and Efrem Holmes.
Here are the dates we have lined up:
Monday, 8/25 – Creative Gifts Indian Valley and Family Services, at Creative Gifts Indian Valley
Monday, 9/22 – Residential, at the main offices
Thursday, 10/9 – Creative Gifts Delco
Tuesday, 10/14 – Creative Gifts Peace Valley
Staff meetings will take place at 3:30 p.m., followed by family meetings at 6:30 p.m. Parents and families be on the lookout for individual meeting invitations with a link to register for these meetings.
We also hosted a well-attended Parent and Family Town Hall in July, and we thank the families who participated in the follow-up survey. We’ve carefully reviewed the feedback and are moving toward a quarterly meeting structure that will allow us to provide more frequent updates and focus on key topics of interest to families.
Future meetings will incorporate suggested topics from the survey responses, along with updates on the current happenings at Peaceful Living.
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Family Services
We are excited to announce we have two new members who are joining our program this August! It will be nice to have new faces in our HUB community.We also have started a new volunteer opportunity at the Souderton Police Department. Our individuals very much enjoy visiting and spending time with the building manager, Sara. From this volunteer opportunity, we have been asked to share more on Peaceful Living’s mission with the Souderton community in the Souderton Borough Newsletter, stay tuned!
We also will soon be participating in pottery lessons at Engage Art Studios. We look forward to continued growth and experiences to come as the Family Services team works very hard to give the best experience possible.
Residential
As you may remember, we opened a new home last quarter to better serve one of our current residents. The home opened in April, and thanks to the dedication of our Residential team, the transition was smooth, and the vacancy was filled the following month. We’re so proud to have welcomed a new individual to Shalom, who is now working on integrating into one of our Creative Gifts Day Programs for the first time, having never attended a day program before. This has been an exciting opportunity for her, and staff has been supportive throughout all the change.Across our network of homes, all are now supported by full-time supervisors and two Residential Managers, each overseeing six homes. This structure ensures consistent oversight, strong communication, and ongoing support for staff and the individuals we serve.
Peace Valley
This summer at Creative Gifts Peace Valley has been full of new experiences and fun seasonal activities. We kicked things off with two summer barbecues, complete with outdoor picnic activities like water games and fun with our huge parachute. A special highlight was a visit from a talented baker who had appeared on a Kids Food Network bake-off show—our group loved decorating cupcakes alongside him.We also enjoyed a trip to the fish hatchery, followed by a fishing outing at a Quakertown campground, where we wrapped up the day by making s’mores around the campfire.
In July, several of our Peace Valley friends visited “The Wall That Heals,” the traveling Vietnam veterans memorial. They were able to watch the impressive procession of firetrucks, police vehicles, and motorcyclists, and were especially thrilled to see the Huey Helicopter up close.
Indian Valley
This quarter’s highlight was our Memorial Day Picnic, which brought together individuals and their families for an afternoon of food, fun, and connection. It was wonderful to see families engaging with one another, sharing stories, and building relationships that strengthen the sense of community at Creative Gifts Indian Valley. The event was filled with smiles and laughter!Delco
Our Delco team is proud to announce that they are hosting their first-ever Community Day celebration on Friday, August 22nd. This event will bring together families, staff, and community partners for a day of connection and celebration. -
This quarter, our Talent Tuesday hiring initiative proved to be a great success, bringing over 20 new staff members to Peaceful Living. While we continue to have staff vacancies at all our programs, the number of openings has decreased significantly.
Another staffing point of pride is that we are fully staffed in all our management roles from our Directors through to our Program Specialists in our three service lines and every role in between. These improvements in staffing help strengthen our programs, enhance consistency for the individuals we support, and position us well for continued growth and stability in the months ahead.
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Peaceful Living continues to make steady progress on the rollout of our Electronic Health Records (EHR) system, iCareManager. This system will improve documentation, streamline coordination, and ultimately allow staff to spend more time on direct support.
To date, all individual demographic information has been successfully loaded into the system. We have also begun loading ISP (Individual Support Plan) information, which includes each person’s specific goals and outcomes. This step of the process is crucial, as it is the foundation for documenting the services we deliver and tracking individual progress.
In addition, we are now using the EHR’s Admissions module to track new individual referrals. This data will help us meet the reporting requirements of the state’s new Performance Based Contracting initiative.
Behind the scenes, our team is working to build data connections between the EHR and existing systems including Human Resources, Finance, and Pharmacy. These connections will minimize duplicate data entry, simplify staff onboarding and payroll, and ensure residential individuals' medication records remain accurate and up to date.
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Our 25th Anniversary Celebration will take place on Thursday, December 4, 2025, at the Holiday Inn in Lansdale, PA. This special evening will celebrate 25 years of belonging and look ahead to Peaceful Living’s exciting future.
We are currently working with our corporate sponsors to ensure the event is a meaningful celebration of our mission and the people we support. Please continue checking your email and following us on social media for the latest updates.
Follow us here:
Facebook: facebook.com/creatingbelonging
Instagram: instagram.com/peacefullivingpa
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peacefullivingpa -
Our most recent residential inspection in July was largely positive, with only minor violations noted. Most of the citations we received were related to training documentation.
Overall, inspectors found our homes to be well-organized, and they noted that the individuals we support are proud of where they live. They even characterized the overall results as an A-, though there is no official grading system.