Emma Case (00:00):
Welcome to Inside The Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Emma Case, Planning and Advocacy Manager at The Senior Alliance, the Area Agency on Aging, serving Western and Southern Wayne County. Joining me today is Amanda Sears, Chief Community Impact Officer at The Senior Alliance. Amanda, thank you for joining me today.
Amanda Sears (00:18):
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Emma Case (00:21):
Caregiving can look very different from one person to another. How do we at The Senior Alliance define a caregiver and what types of responsibilities do caregivers take on?
Amanda Sears (00:30):
That’s a great question and a difficult one to answer because caregiving looks different for everyone. There’s no one definition of what a caregiver is or does. So The Senior Alliance tries to define this broadly as the caregivers being anyone who provides unpaid or sometimes paid care to a loved one, such as a family member, friend, spouse, neighbor, or basically anyone else. And the tasks that they might provide vary from providing emotional support or helping with cooking or grocery shopping, or might be more complex like medical care or bathing and dressing. The people they’re helping may be living with disabilities, chronic illnesses or otherwise need assistance with daily living activities or medical care to stay independent. So basically in the U.S. there are nearly one in five adults who are caregivers to another person. So that’s 53 million people across the country, which is why we take this seriously at The Senior Alliance. We see this as an essential area that we need to support in our work with older adults.
Emma Case (01:38):
From what you mentioned, caregiving takes a lot of responsibility and compassion, and at TSA, we wanted to ensure that resources and guidance and encouragement are provided to all types of caregivers. Amanda, can you share a little bit about Caregiving Haven and what inspired its creation?
Amanda Sears (01:54):
So Caregiving Haven is an online resource center specifically for caregivers. It’s available at www.caregivinghaven.org or it can be accessed through The Senior Alliance website going to the Caregiver tab on our main menu. But it started with a successful advocacy campaign for one time state funding in 2023 that funded area agencies on aging across Michigan to develop caregiver resource centers. Since this was one time funding, The Senior Alliance wanted to make sure that we did something that was long lasting and had the maximum positive impact. We were already updating our website at that time, so it kind of made sense to create a robust online resource center for caregiving. So that’s how Caregiving Haven began. We ended up doing a lot of research on what caregivers needed. We spoke with caregivers to find out what would be really helpful and put a lot of tools out on our website that anyone can access. It’s nice because it doesn’t matter where you live. You can be in Washington State and access what we have online and we have videos. We have a video library for caregivers, we have caregiving guides, we have quizzes. We have a lot of information on our site for caregivers to use.
Emma Case (03:16):
You mentioned how the website offers a care binder to help caregivers stay organized and keep important information in one place. Can you explain what goes into the care binder and how it can make day-to-day caregiving a little easier?
Amanda Sears (03:28):
So the caregiver binder is a really cool tool that basically helps caregivers stay organized. So you can go on our website and you can download the care binder, the entire thing or just the pieces that you want. We even have some covers that you could put on it, but it’s essentially an organization tool that has personal information, medical information, housing, transportation. It helps you keep track of all of the information for the person you’re caring for. So who their mortgage is with, where they pay utilities, what their doctors and specialists that they have, who they are and how to contact them. If they are a veteran, like where do they keep their discharge paperwork, if they’re an immigrant, where do they keep their immigration documents? So it helps them just keep track of what there is and where it’s kept so that if they need to access it for their loved one that they have all of that. And we call it a care binder, even though it’s online because we see this as something that you would print out, fill out, and put in a binder to help yourself stay organized. And it’s customizable, like I said, so you can download just the forms that you want or the entire thing.
Emma Case (04:44):
Caregiving Haven also offers caregiver quizzes to help people better understand their needs and challenges. Can you tell us more about these quizzes and how they work and how caregivers can use the results to find the right resources or support?
Amanda Sears (04:57):
Yeah, so the quizzes are a fun and useful tool to help people identify as caregivers and identify their caregiving style. So we have an “am I a caregiver” quiz that you can take and essentially if you answer yes to any of the questions on the quiz, it tells you that you are a caregiver and then there’s a link to connect you with resources. And we made it simple because we wanted people to see that no matter what they answer, if they answer yes to one thing, they’re a caregiver. They don’t have to answer yes to five things to make them a caregiver. If you’re just going over and cutting your dad’s lawn, you are a caregiver in a sense. So it’s just helping get that through. Because a big thing with caregivers is many people don’t identify until you know, they’re very far into the caregiving journey.
Amanda Sears (05:48):
And we want people to know that there’s support for them and their loved ones early on in the process before they get to the point where they’re burnt out, out or stressed or at more of a critical spot. We also have a fun caregiver style quiz. This one asks questions about how the individual provides care, seeks help, gets self care, what kinds of things, more like a personality type quiz, and this is just a fun one. There’s five caregiving styles that it comes up with, and the one that you identify with the most answers in the quiz that you take tells you what types of resources would help you as a caregiver. It’s a fun quiz, but also practical in that it provides you specific resources based on the style that you identify with.
Emma Case (06:38):
A lot of caregivers often put their own health last. How does Caregiving Haven help them prioritize their own self-care?
Amanda Sears (06:46):
So one of the ways that it helps is helping people first identify as caregivers. So if they stumble upon our site or come to our site to seek help for something and they see that they’re a caregiver, we have an insight area on our site that tells information about who caregivers are, give some statistics, a little bit about what caregivers might provide, and we provide information on how self-care for the caregiver is really important. I think that’s kind of throughout our site, making sure that caregivers know that they need to put their self first because if they can’t provide care, then who will? So they need to put their needs before the other person. We have options for support groups. We have videos. We have a whole video library of animations that we provided, as well as links to podcasts where they can connect with other caregivers and hear their journeys. So we have a lot on there to help them see that it’s really important to support themselves first while they’re providing care to another person.
Emma Case (07:53):
Many caregivers often feel isolated, especially those who are balancing full-time caregiving responsibilities and that can make it hard for them to stay socially connected. How does Caregiving Haven help those caregivers feel less alone and create a sense of community and support?
Amanda Sears (08:10):
Some of the ways that we do this is helping them just see that they’re not alone like that they are a caregiver. Again, I keep saying that, but that’s the big thing, is people don’t identify as a caregiver and then they don’t seek out support that is available for them. And we have support groups. We have one locally with an organization called Access, and there’s an Exhale caregiver group where caregivers come together twice a month. There’s activities and speakers that’s hosted in Dearborn. We also have several recommendations for online support groups. Like I said, we have a podcast library of recommendations that help people hear from other people’s stories. And I think just seeing that there is a lot of support out there is a way to make people feel less alone and less isolated.
Emma Case (08:59):
Caregiving can look different across families and cultures and across the country. What types of caregiving tools or resources do you offer for diverse age groups or cultural backgrounds?
Amanda Sears (09:10):
So we have a lot of resources available for diverse caregivers and age groups. One of the really cool tools that we have is our caregiver guides. We have our main caregiver guide, the Starting Your Caregiver Journey. These are available as PDFs on our website, and we’ll have printed copies available at our office as well. We translated the main guide into Spanish and Arabic so that it’s accessible. We also have community specific guides. We have caregiving in the Black community, caregiving in the Hispanic and Latino community and caregiving in the Middle Eastern and North African community. The Hispanic and Latino and the Middle Eastern and North African were also translated into Spanish and Arabic. And then we have some specific guides. A Veterans one is coming for caregiving with Veterans. We have caregiving for chronic and serious health conditions and caregiving for Alzheimer’s and dementia care. These are all guides that are available. They provide specific information for caregivers in these specific situations. The main caregiving guide is kind of the everything that relates to most people and has a ton of information. It’s 56 pages and very useful, but then the caregiving in the Black community goes into some of the nuances with people in that community and really is more specific to them. And I think these are really helpful tools for people. We’ve gotten really great feedback and I’m really excited about them.
Emma Case (10:46):
What tools and supports are specifically on the Caregiving Haven for long distance caregivers versus those providing daily hands-on care. For long distance caregivers in particular, how can Caregiving Haven help them stay involved and feel confident that they’re still making a difference from afar?
Amanda Sears (11:04):
All of our tools are available for people regardless of where they live. The caregiver binder is one that I see as very helpful for people who are long distance. It can help them keep track of everything and know the doctors that their loved one goes to or who they pay bills to or who cuts their lawn, helps them just keep organized in everything that they’re doing. And also, you know, there’s the online support groups that are available for people regardless where they live. And then we have our resource directory that’s online and available any time of the day, so you could be living in a different state and caring for somebody in our area and go on a resource directory online and look for specific services that they need and get those local resources for them.
Emma Case (11:56):
Lastly, where can our listeners access Caregiving Haven or find out more information about it?
Amanda Sears (12:01):
Yeah, you can go to www.caregivinghaven.org or you can visit www.thesenioralliance.org and click on Caregiving in the main menu to access Caregiving Haven.
Emma Case (12:15):
Amanda, thanks again for joining me today.
Amanda Sears (12:18):
Thank you so much for having me.
Emma Case (12:20):
If you have any questions about services or programs The Senior Alliance offers, you can call us at (734) 722-2830 or email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our agency or the programs and services we offer can be found on our website at www.thesenioralliance.org. Finally, we can be located on Facebook by searching for The Senior Alliance. I’m Emma Case. Thank you for listening to this episode of Inside The Senior Alliance.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Inside The Senior Alliance is a production of The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media.
