By Geralyn Magan
A $20 million federal initiative supports a national strategy developed with help from LTSS Center and Community Catalyst researchers.
When the Administration for Community Living (ACL) recently announced $20 million in new funding to support family caregivers, it described it as “our first major initiative in support of the 2022 National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers.”
The national strategy, released in September 2022, contains findings from research conducted by the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation.
Beginning in 2020, LTSS Center and Community Catalyst researchers conducted extensive outreach to hundreds of stakeholder organizations serving family caregivers and analyzed feedback from thousands of caregivers. Other stakeholder groups, such as the direct care workforce, county health care providers, employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, and respite care providers, participated in individual interviews and group listening sessions.
The researchers’ report, Building a National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers: Findings from Key Informant Interviews and Stakeholder Listening Sessions, was released in February 2022. It contained more than 100 recommendations for actions that could be taken by federal, state, local, and private-sector entities to support family caregivers. Its findings were incorporated into the national strategy by the RAISE Act Family Caregiving Advisory Council.
“We let them know where some of the pain points are in the system and what key stakeholders think needs to be done, and we helped organize and prioritize a number of the many initiatives put forward by the stakeholder groups,” says LTSS Center Co-Director Marc Cohen, who worked on the report with LTSS Center colleagues Eileen J. Tell and Pamela Nadash, and Siena Rugggeri from the Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation.
The report’s action steps fall into five broad areas, each of which is a major goal driving the national strategy:
- Increasing awareness of family caregivers.
- Engaging family caregivers as partners in healthcare and long-term services and supports.
- Improving access to services and supports for family caregivers.
- Supporting financial and workplace security for family caregivers.
- Generating research, data, and evidence-informed practices.
“This is a clear example of learning a lot just by listening,” says Cohen. “We convened stakeholders representing over 100 organizations and learned exactly what they were experiencing and what they needed to make a real difference in the lives of caregivers. Fortunately, ACL has now begun to provide financial support to see a number of the many recommended strategies move toward implementation.”
ACL will award five cooperative agreements to projects that foster advancements in two programs authorized by the Older Americans Act: the National Family Caregiver Support Program and the Native American Caregiver Support Program. Each project will receive up to $1.1 million annually for four years to develop, test, and disseminate new approaches to supporting family caregivers.
Details and application instructions for the grants are posted on Grants.gov. Applications are due on June 26, 2023.