With a growing number of older adults and people with disabilities in the U.S., family caregivers play a critical role in ensuring this population can remain in their homes and communities as long as possible. While family caregivers — including “chosen” family — provide vital assistance to support the health and functional needs of older adults, they often face physical, emotional, and financial challenges related to their caregiving responsibilities.
This National Family Caregivers Month, the Center for Health Care Strategies is sharing resources designed to help states and other health care stakeholders better support family caregivers:
- Supporting the Critical Role of Family Caregivers: State Opportunities – This fact sheet and companion infographic shed light on how vital family caregivers are to the U.S. health care workforce and economy, and outline examples of how states can better support these individuals.
- Establishing Cross-Sector Partnerships to Improve Family Caregiver Supports – This tool can guide states interested in pursuing cross-sector partnerships to strengthen services for family caregivers.
- Making the Invisible Visible: State Strategies for Identifying and Reaching Family Caregivers – This brief presents key strategies to help states better identify and reach family caregivers.
- Using Medicaid Payment Strategies to Support Family Caregivers and Direct Care Workers – This blog post outlines challenges facing family caregivers and direct care workers and describes Medicaid payment strategies that can better support this workforce.
- Supporting Family Caregivers – This Better Care Playbook collection provides an inventory of recent evidence behind programs that support family caregivers as well as practical tools and case studies to guide complex care stakeholders in better supporting caregivers.
