November is National Family Caregivers Month, a nationally recognized time to focus attention on the more than 50 million family caregivers who provide 80% of our nation’s long term care services. It is sponsored by the National Family Caregivers Association.
The theme this year is “Speak Up!” and the NFCA has included resources on their website to help you do this, including the top 10 ways to celebrate and a free teleclass on improving communication.
“Family Caregiver Month is an opportunity to look again at the challenge of how we can better meet society’s need for more quality caregiving, both family and formal, both paid and unpaid,” says PHI Director of Policy Research Dr. Dorie Seavey.
“At a time when the family caregiving ‘system’ is increasingly stressed and the poor quality of direct-care jobs results in high rates of turnover, it no longer makes sense to treat family and formal caregiving as two separate worlds. Our actual practices in providing long-term care have outgrown this construct. That is why PHI is calling for a new policy direction that integrates and supports both family and formal paid care under a common agenda.”
PHI resources on this topic:
- Better Jobs Better Care Issue Brief (pdf)
- National Policy Agenda: Consumer direction and family caregiving (pdf)
Aaron Toleos, Online Communications Director
atoleos@phinational.org
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