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Caring for The Caregiver: Becoming Fearless During Illness and Loss
When illness comes, the entire family network starts hurting. Everyone in it becomes sensitized and in need of greater attention and care. Rivalries may begin to develop with family members jockeying for control. A great deal of fear and anxiety can get stirred up. Sometimes an individual becomes...
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Caregivers Plan for the Future with Federation of Organizations’ Financial Management Program
What will happen when I am not around? How can I protect the future of my loved one? These are some of the questions that caregivers ask themselves as they search for reassuring answers. After years of work helping families to prepare for the future of their loved ones, there is one point we cannot...
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Giving Care to the Caregiver: Visiting Nurse Services in Westchester
Often, the homecare nurse will encounter that once-in-a lifetime individual who has decided to take on the huge task of being the primary caregiver for an ill family member. Their motivation may vary from person to person. It may be financial, concern for the quality of care, or just wanting to be...
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Addressing the Needs of Caregivers
Our society relies on families to provide care for disabled family members. They provide 80% of such care, and the financial value of their work is close to $400 billion per year. If families did not provide this care, it would add 15 to 20% to the costs of health care in the United States. I...
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Addressing the Needs of Caregivers
All too often, the severely mentally ill do not have family or friends involved in their care to act as a vital support system when they become symptomatic. For those people who are lucky enough to have supportive family and friends, those support people are often, and validly so, frustrated with...
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Who Cares for the Caregiver? Responding to the Needs of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
When parents are unable to raise their children, relatives are often called upon to become primary caregivers. In the U.S. approximately 2.5 million kin caregivers have assumed this role—often unexpectedly, due to parental substance abuse, mental illness, violence, domestic violence, abuse and...
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Where Do I Fit In? Elderly Caregivers of Children
Growing numbers of grandparents and (other relatives) are raising family member’s children. Historically, in some communities, it was not unusual for children to live with grandparents for all or parts of their childhoods. More recently, the arrival of drugs, consequent incarcerations, and...
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The Challenge of Caregiving: A Personal Story
Parents, spouses and other caregivers of individuals with illnesses and disabilities do not have special gifts. We are very average people who tap into our superhuman strengths that everyone has, but don’t always need to draw on. Twenty-five years ago this Fall my life changed forever. My son,...
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The Care Manager as Storyteller and Coach: Giving Voice to the Caregiver’s Reality and Opening Doors
Imagine being so consumed with the work of caregiving that an eviction notice doesn’t scare you. This true story reminds us of how dangerous it is for caregivers to feel disempowered and how powerful storytelling can change the lives of caregivers in crisis. Janice was diagnosed with neck...
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Peer-Led Support Helps Parents and Caregivers Cope with Mental Illness
When her teenage daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Deniece Chi did not know where to turn for help. A native of Belize residing in New York City, she had no experience with or understanding of mental illness. Her relatives dismissed the diagnosis and suggested that a lack of discipline...
