Employee, family member, caregiver, friend, citizen. We all carry multiple roles in society, and each comes with pressures to deliver the highest quality service. Sometimes those responsibilities require more than a 24-hour day will allow, which has implications for not only individuals and families, but also businesses of all shapes and sizes.
By: John Schall, CEO, Caregiver Action Network
November is National Family Caregivers Month and this year’s theme this is Family Caregivers – Now More Than Ever!
Each year, more and more Americans are caring for a loved one with a chronic condition, disability, or the frailties of old age. There are as many as 90 million family caregivers in the U.S. today. And family caregivers, in turn, rely on help from volunteers – friends, neighbors, others in the community – with any number of the many tasks that go along with caregiving.
By David Novak
Caring for a loved one with an illness — like cancer, dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease– is not easy. It takes strength, patience and love. When caring for a loved one, your health and wellness may often take a backseat. As a caregiver, all your time and energy is devoted to nurturing your friend or family member. You grab fast food at a drive-through or skip meals entirely to stay by his or her side. You let your exercise program go. And because a caregiver role can be extremely mentally fatiguing, your mental health can be at stake as well.
by Paula Spencer Scott, senior editor at Caring.com
Seeing a friend or relative in need taps a wonderful human impulse in most of us: to give help. The quandary is that we’re often not exactly sure how to do that. What kind of help is needed? How can you find out? What’s the best way to offer meaningful, real help without being pushy, nosy, or otherwise off-key? Try these suggestions:
At Lotsa Helping Hands we are truly privileged to witness the best the human soul has to offer. Reading the unsolicited testimonials sent in by many of our 1.2 million community members is both an honor as well as a constant reminder of the humbling responsibility we all have to assist those in need. While so many express their gratitude for the free service we provide, there is an underlying theme in each unique story of how family, friends, and neighbors came together to aid in caring for the caregiver. But what about those other tens of millions of caregivers who feel isolated, often desperate as they struggle daily with the emotional, physical, and financial hardships confronting them? Too often a community member who has helped someone will conclude their testimonial with a comment to the effect “I only wish I’d known about this service years ago when I was caring for my ______.”
Caregiving – and the challenges faced by caregivers – is now so widely recognized that it’s easy to forget that only 5-10 years ago the biggest challenge for those of us in the industry advocating for help was how to get caregivers to simply self-identify. People viewed their caregiving challenges in terms of their responsibility as a spouse, sibling, parent, or friend. Rarely as a member of a very large club consisting of 65 million other members!
Contributed by Barry Katz, Co-Founder at Lotsa Helping Hands
In 2005 version 1.0 of the Lotsa Helping Hands service was introduced to the world. While rudimentary in its design and feature set, it did begin to address the needs of caregivers. This once neglected group now had some building blocks to begin organizing their thoughts and approach to caregiving. As a Lotsa Co-Founder, and one of the providers of basic support to Community members, three early Communities stand out to me:
Contributed by Brooks Kenny, Chief Marketing Officer and part of the Founding Team of Lotsa Helping Hands
It’s National Volunteer Week, and as the nation celebrates people helping one another, we are excited, inspired, and proud to be a part of it. National Volunteer Week, created by our friends at Points of Light and the HandsOn Network, is a celebration dedicated to recognizing and encouraging community members to take action and make a difference.
Contributed by Sherri Snelling
While some people will start the month by playing a funny joke on a friend or co-worker, the beginning of April, which marks National Stress Awareness Month, makes me think about the stress that plagues those who are caring for an older loved one. And, believe me, caregiver stress is no joking matter.