By Lisa Watts
The LTSS Center will evaluate whether efforts to increase the capacity of caregiving coalitions made a difference in the lives of family caregivers.
The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston is partnering with Community Catalyst on a four-year project to develop, test, and disseminate new approaches for increasing awareness of family caregivers and building support for their unique concerns.
The work is supported by the Administration for Community Living in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The new project will build on the work completed during the Changing the Care Conversation project, a national learning and action-oriented initiative designed to improve support for family caregivers of older adults and people with disabilities, especially caregivers with low and moderate incomes and caregivers of color.
The original project convened 10 state-based family caregiving coalitions, each of which recruited family caregivers and worked with them to tell their personal stories as a means of advocating for change in their communities. The coalitions developed policy priorities, met with state legislators and administrators, led statewide caregiving summits, and formed statewide family caregiving advisory committees, all focused on boosting recognition, support, and inclusion of family caregivers.
Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation led the Changing the Care Conversation project in partnership with the LTSS Center and Grantmakers in Aging. The LTSS Center evaluated the efforts of these coalitions as they built an advocacy infrastructure.
Goals for the new ACL project include adding three to five more state-based coalitions and providing capacity-building training through coaching and technical assistance. The LTSS Center will evaluate these efforts.
“These are coalitions of caregivers who intimately understand the challenges caregivers face,” says Verena Cimarolli, director of health services research and partnerships for the LTSS Center. “These coalitions are eagerly seeking a platform to place family caregivers and the family members they care for at the forefront of policymaking. Community Catalyst will educate and collaborate with these coalitions on how to use their voices to bring change to their diverse communities. Our job at the LTSS Center will be to see if these efforts are making a difference.”
Read more about the new project on the Gerontology Institute blog.