PA CareKit Reaches Thousands of Pennsylvanians with Support and Resources for Unpaid Caregivers
Since the Department launched the PA CareKit in May 2025, more than 315,000 people have taken advantage of the tailored services on the Department’s website. Following the launch, nearly 10,000 Pennsylvanians have visited the PA CareKit Caregiver Quiz, a tool that helps them understand their needs and receive tailored support and resources based on their caregiving situation.
The PA CareKit – an innovative resource to support the Commonwealth’s nearly 2.4 million unpaid caregivers – provides training, connection to respite services, and personalized tools to help caregivers like spouses, adult children, and grandparents raising grandchildren address their unique situations.
Department Launches Statewide Tour Highlighting Modernized Tool Keeping Older Adults Safe and Boosting Oversight, Accountability of Local Aging Agencies
The Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE) allows the Department to do away with a simple pass/fail scoring system, and comprehensively ask “what does this local agency specifically need to improve?”
One day after Governor Josh Shapiro signed the 2026-27 budget into law, the Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) kicked off a statewide tour highlighting how the Department’s new approach to evaluating the performance of older adult protective services is delivering better results in keeping older adults safe, leaving behind a prior ineffective pass/fail system that did not provide adequate oversight of local aging agencies.
That tool, the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation (CAPE), is also providing historic levels of transparency and accountability of the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) network that provides an array of services to support older adults, including protective services. In the 26-27 budget, Governor Shapiro secured a $1 million increase for CAPE so the Department can continue to improve AAA oversight and accountability.
Through CAPE, monitoring results are now routinely posted to the Department’s website for the first time ever, with clearly defined, simple key categories for each AAA. For the first time in the Department’s history, the public can see exactly how well their local AAA is doing in programs including Protective Services, OPTIONs (help at home) services and Caregiver Support Program services.
My Money Website Helps Pennsylvanians Learn About, Manage, and Protect Their Finances
The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities (DoBS) launched My Money, a new online resource designed to help Pennsylvanians learn about, manage, and protect their finances. Available at pa.gov/MyMoney, the website brings together trusted financial education materials, fraud prevention resources, and consumer assistance information in a single, easy-to-navigate location.
My Money provides guidance for Pennsylvanians at every stage of life — from higher education and career planning to homeownership, military service, retirement, and unexpected financial challenges — while connecting users with trusted state and federal resources.
A Resources for Your Life Chapter page includes a section for “Aging and Retirement” as well as a wealth of useful financial resources on the site for Pennsylvania’s consumers.
The launch of My Money is the latest step in the Shapiro Administration’s broader consumer protection initiative, which includes the statewide consumer protection hotline 1-866-PACOMPLAINT (1-866-722-6675), pa.gov/consumer website, consumer@pa.gov email address, new cryptocurrency safeguards, AI fraud protections, and regulatory actions that have returned millions to consumers.
Strategic Enforcement Initiative Launched to Protect Home Care Workers’ Rights
Roughly 40 percent of Minimum Wage Act complaints in Pennsylvania come from home care workers. PDA joined the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry Secretary Nancy A. Walker – along with the Pennsylvania Departments of Human Services, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, labor partners, worker advocates, and home care workers – to announce the launch of Standing Up for Home Care Workers, a strategic labor law enforcement initiative to protect home care workers’ wages and ensure home care agencies and other third-party employers comply with Pennsylvania law.
Standing Up for Home Care Workers will use proactive enforcement to help ensure home care workers receive the wages they are owed for hours worked.
Learn more here.
HB 2109: Dubbed as the “Golden Girls” Act, it prevents municipalities from arbitrarily limiting the number of unrelated members of a household with the intent of increasing shared living.
HB 2186: Provides a right to site an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) in single-family zoned areas with safety restrictions.
HB 1522: Mandates the installation and maintenance of fuel gas detectors in residential and commercial buildings.
HB 1528: Establishes the Grand-Family Assistance Program to be administered by PDA/AAAs and funded through the Opioid Settlement Restricted Account.
HB 1894: Ensures IEB provides individuals with a LIFE program option and requires the individual to attest to receiving and understanding that option for long-term care.
HB 79: Establishes a hospital assistance program to provide medical debt relief.
HB 1611: House version of updating OAPSA (includes fatality review teams).
SB 1100: Authorizing the development of AAA fatality review teams.
HB 2106: Expands the list of persons to be notified when a guardianship request is initiated.
SB 1376: “Coleman Bill,” establishes proper safeguards for PDA and AAAs in OAPSA.
SB 738: Senate version of updating OAPSA.
SB 756: Senate leadership version of skill game licensing with 35% tax deposited to a Skill Games Fund for legislative distribution
SESSION SCHEDULE
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House
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September 9, 28,29, 30
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October 5, 6, 7, 19, 20, 21
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November 9, 10
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Senate
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September 28, 29, 30
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October 5, 6, 7, 19, 20, 21
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November 17, 18
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