Part of our mandate is to provide support to caregivers and we do this through a variety of supports, including one-to-one counselling and referrals to various resources in the community, such as the caregiver education series and support groups facilitated by Vancouver Coastal Health and the Alzheimer Society. Last fall we distributed a Survey of Caregiver Needs to the caregivers of our participants from both centres in order to learn more about our caregivers and to determine how we could best support them. As a result of the feedback we received, we identified three goals for the 2012-2013 year:
- Develop an internet resource for clients and caregivers that will provide information about our centres, about topics related to adult day services and caregiving and links to community resources.
- Develop a caregiver resource manual containing information about supports and services in the community, as well as social or activity programs that can be attended by caregivers and care recipients.
- Organize one information session and one social event at each site that can be attended by the caregivers of our clients.
Thanks to the efforts of our staff and practicum students, the first two goals of our caregiver initiative have been met. Currently, we are working on our third goal to organize one information session and one social event which will take place between January and April of 2013. To this end, we are in the process of contacting all of our caregivers to obtain feedback about their ideas for what to discuss at these events.
We will keep you updated on our progress and encourage you to think of potential topics for discussion at these events.