By Lisa Watts
A new report presents a strategic roadmap for supporting family caregivers.
A new report from the Leading Age LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation presents a strategic roadmap for supporting family caregivers, who play a critical role in providing long-term services and supports (LTSS) to older adults, but whose needs are often overlooked.
The report, Building a National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers: Findings from Key Informant Interviews and Stakeholder Listening Sessions, summarizes insights from a year’s worth of strategy sessions and interviews with representatives of more than 100 organizations.
Momentum to support family caregivers was boosted in 2018 when Congress authorized the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, & Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act. The RAISE Act created the Family Caregiving Advisory Council, which identified five primary recommendations to improve the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of family caregivers.
Seeking to develop action steps to support those five recommendations, “we gathered very broad input from the widest possible audience,” says LTSS Center Co-Director Marc Cohen, who is one of the report’s authors. The new report contains input from representatives of national and state organizations, county health providers, the direct care workforce, large and small employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, respite care providers, and others who shared their thoughts on the most critical needs of family caregivers and best practices to address those needs.
Learn more about the report at the Gerontology Institute Blog.