Opinion: Family caregivers, raise your hands, find relief
If you had the choice, would you sign up for a part-time job at 20 hours a week on top of your current full-time job?
Consider a working, single mother of two middle-schoolers and suddenly a “part-time” caregiver for her aging parents. Her parents, both in their 80s, struggle to manage finances, keep up with home repairs, and get to many doctors’ appointments. Balancing work and caregiver roles leaves her little time for herself. This real-life story mirrors that of so many Iowans, who find themselves in unexpected, demanding part-time careers. Too often, these caregivers are struggling in silence without support.
Family caregivers — daughters, sons, spouses, grandchildren and beyond — are critical to the health and well-being of their loved ones. An estimated 317,000 Iowans are family caregivers, providing $3.9 billion worth of unpaid care annually. They are the backbone of the state’s health care system, but many caregivers don’t get the support they need and experience burnout.
Across the nation, stakeholders increasingly recognize the need to better identify and support family caregivers, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the state level, Iowa passed the CARE Act in 2019 and continues to explore ways to identify caregivers who need support, including through collaboration with other states.
Efforts to identify and support family caregivers
Multiple organizations across Iowa are working to develop new strategies to identify family caregivers and support their needs. Area Agencies on Aging, or AAAs, can help direct family caregivers to available supports. Iowa’s six AAAs, however, needed a consistent solution for identifying caregivers and assessing and addressing their needs.
Iowa’s Department on Aging staff and the AAAs reviewed existing caregiver assessments, identified ways to streamline processes — including how and when family caregivers were assessed — and determined how to best connect family caregivers to resources. Together, these partners launched a new assessment in January 2020 to better understand Iowa’s family caregivers and their priorities and to standardize this data collection across the state.
The availability of the new assessment at the start of the pandemic helped the state pivot in response to the heightened needs for caregiver supports. Our data has shown a 67 percent increase in family caregivers served by the Area Agencies on Aging from 2019 to 2021. Family caregiver supports that have seen the largest increases during this time include informal counseling, information and assistance, options counseling, and case management for family caregivers.
Permission to ask for help
Family caregivers — like the mother we mentioned at the beginning who was juggling work, parenting her children, and caring for her octogenarian parents — cannot and do not need to do this alone. She discovered her AAA had information on available support services and ideas on how she could balance work, caregiving responsibilities, and her own needs. If you are a family caregiver, raise your hand — find services in your community through your local AAA or LifeLong Links to give yourself a very deserved break.
Linda Miller is the director of the Iowa Department on Aging. Kay Vanags is the LifeLong Links director for Aging Resources of Central Iowa. Kristie Wiltgen is the regional director at Northeast Iowa Area Agency on Aging.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: Family caregivers should raise their hands, find relief