Your Care: Your Community Programs

Your Community Services
Caregiver House Makes A Home for You

On a regular basis, we'll feature a program or service that can help you in your caregiving role. In this article, we introduce you to Foundation for Senior Living, based in Phoenix, and its Caregiver House. We asked the Foundation's Jodi Stanley to tell us about the organization's programs and services.

Caregiving: Tell us about the Foundation and its goals in helping family caregivers

Jodi: The Foundation for Senior Living (FSL) is one of the largest non-profit organizations in Arizona, dedicated to serving older adults and their families in the community and in their own homes. The mission of the Foundation for Senior Living is to provide exceptional services, education and advocacy in order to preserve independence and enhance the quality of life for all seniors, adults with disabilities and their caregivers. These programs are designed to meet the social, health, psychological and spiritual needs without discrimination. Last year, more than 25,000 individuals were served by one or more of these programs.

The Foundation offers many programs and services provided in flexible, personalized ways to promote self-reliance and independence. Core values and principles in the Foundation’s philosophy are: respecting the dignity of the care recipient and their caregivers, personalized services of the highest professional quality, focusing on the wellness and strengths in individuals and support systems, protecting privacy and confidentiality, providing stewardship and cost-effective management of resources in an ethical way. A list of our core programs/services:

--The FSL Caregiver House (See other questions and answers for more details)

--Adult Day Health Care offer specialized programming and services for elderly and disabled individuals. The Foundation operates seven Adult Day Health Care Centers (ADHC) throughout Maricopa County.

--The Pathways Program provides community resource and referral, intensive problem solving, counseling, care planning and management services.

--Home Improvements includes low cost minor repair, major remodeling, conversions and adaptations for persons with disabilities as well as weatherization options, conserving limited income and energy.

--In-Home Assisted Living and Home Care Services feature visiting nurse, home health aide, personal care, live-in attendant, chore and homemaker services The Foundation is a licensed Medicare certified home health agency.

--Adult Foster Care recruits, trains and monitors individuals to provide personal care and supervision in at “at-home” family environment.

--Community Action and Senior Center Programs operate in Peoria and Wickenburg. The senior centers provide 60,000 congregate and home delivered meals per year as well as socialization and health education for seniors.

--Assisted Group Living is an intensive community based program for frail elders with serious mental illness. All of these elders have a long history of institutionalization from ten to twenty years. The program provides 24-hour home protective oversight, attendant and personal care, skilled nursing, social work services, medication supervision, medical service management and interdisciplinary care planning.

Caregiving: You’ve created the Caregiver House which helps family caregivers learn about their experience. Can you tell us the origin of the house?

Jodi: The FSL Caregiver House is a unique facility designed to provide caregiver education, information on home designs and modifications (universal design) which make a home more livable at any age, opportunities for self-care and rejuvenation when someone is caring for themselves and/or others, as wells as access to adaptive equipment and its effective use in a home environment. We believe it is the first of its type in the country.

When a neighbor to the Foundation offered the sale of her house to the Foundation for Senior Living, the wheels started to spin as to how we might utilize the property as a training facility. Susan Kilby, Community Education Director, after many years of working as a trainer and curriculum developer, realized the value of a ‘living-learning” lab with “hands on” type of training. Initially, the thought was to offer training not only to employees and paraprofessional caregivers, but also expand our offerings to the family caregiver.

As plans for the FSL Caregiver House were discussed, it was quickly realized that caregiving is not one dimensional. Caregivers need more than educational support and training. Conceptually, plans for the House started to form, incorporating several aspects of caregiving. Foundation’s Home Improvements program clearly demonstrates ways to make caregiving easier with home design elements, modifications to the home, and equipment choices. And, through other FSL support programs of the Foundation, caregivers were able to find resources, respite and rejuvenation. The FSL Caregiver House exemplifies an organization that cares for more than just the care recipient, but, also the caregiver. The FSL Caregiver House is about recognizing the multiple needs of caregivers. Listening. It’s one of the most important things we do.

Caregiving: What is the neatest part?

Jodi: One of the most exciting things about the Caregiver House is that because it is a house, it is a very comfortable setting. Community members who come for a simple tour, say, to look at bathroom equipment, quickly become comfortable in the setting and start to ask other questions, solving other caregiving dilemmas. Nearly everyone who tours the home has had a caregiving situation of their own, or has someone close to them that is challenged as a caregiver. Caregivers aren’t always willing to discuss these most private of situations. But, the Caregiver House seems to be a place of common ground for caregivers and there is an intrinsic caregiver camaraderie and restfulness when visiting.

Caregiving: Which programs/services are most utilized?

Jodi: The value of having four key elements driving the utilization of the home (education, equipment choices, home design & modification, and self care/rejuvenation) allows for caregivers who are experiencing the different stages of caregiving and have questions very specific to their time and place, to tap into the different elements as the need arises. The most important thing is that they know there is a place, like the FSL Caregiver House, that can support them. We have many people who simply drop by to investigate home design options for that retirement home they are building. We also have “worn out”, deeply troubled caregivers who need a hug, educational opportunities, and a problem-solving team that genuinely cares about their circumstances.

Caregiving: Tell us a story about how the house has changed the life of a caregiver

Jodi: There are multiple stories that demonstrate how equipment recommendations have kept someone at home, longer, where they want to be... meanwhile, saving the physical health or sanity of a caregiver. And, even more stories and kudos of how the educational opportunities are invaluable to these caregivers. But, perhaps, the best stories are those that are summed up with simple comments such as “Thank you for this rejuvenation and relaxation workshop, the ability to be with other caregivers, and this lovely, hot meal, that I didn’t have to prepare myself. It has been a very long time since someone cared about ME, as a caregiver.”

Caregiving: What do you enjoy about your job? What have you learned from family caregivers?

Jodi: It is exciting to see that creative solutions as well as serving as a resource to caregivers generates so much hope in their life. Family caregivers are amazingly supportive to one another. It motivates me to see caregivers reaching out to each other, offering even more support and solutions than they might have “left in them”…

Caregiving: What advice and suggestions would you offer family caregivers?

Jodi: My advice would be not to fear or misunderstand the word “caregiver”. If you are sitting at the office and worrying about mom and dad, you are a caregiver. You don’t have to be lifting, bathing, feeding someone to be their caregiver. Nor do you have to be paid. If you are searching the yellow pages or Internet, listening to your co-workers discussing similar problems, you have much to gain by connecting to caregiver support services and programs. And, like anything, the more proactive you are, the better. Don’t wait until you can’t stand it any longer…BUT, if you do wait that long…there is still support. It’s not too late.

Caregiving: What are the future goals of the agency? What would you like to add?

Jodi: There are many innovative programs discussed on a daily basis at the Foundation. Most initiatives focus on the idea of building, or making stronger, the continuum of care that can keep people utilizing home and community based services as long as they are safe and desire that home setting.

Personally, being from a more rural area, I think the tele-health concepts and tele-conferencing opportunities the Foundation for Senior Living is exploring truly deal with the realities of caregiver shortages, health care costs, decreased funding, caregivers’ inabilities to “get away”, and lack of rural resources and support programs.

For more information about Foundation for Senior Living, please visit its website at http://www.fsl.org/ or call toll-free 866-375-9779.

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