During her keynote conversation on November 8 at the Fourth Annual National Caregiving Conference, the IL Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton asked us to capture ideas on what we can do to improve the lives of family caregivers. She will then share our ideas with her fellow Lieutenant Governors. (Watch the conversation with the Lt. Governor.)

We captured the following ideas at the conference:

• Create Navigator roles to help caregivers connect to resources already available to them


• Build education & awareness programs to assist employers in recognizing and understanding their role supporting employee caregivers


• Subsidies/incentives for companies (especially SMEs) to provide caregiving support for employees


• Increase Medicaid monthly benefit/allowance


• Respond to “Patient Dumping” and/or Unsafe Discharges – HIPPA: Emergency contacts can’t be contacted when patient discharges against medical advice (in Florida)


• LT Care/Insurance Regulation


• Memory Care for supportive living


• HR & Supervisor training to recognize early dementia identification for disability claims before retiring, firing or layoff


• Provide Medicaid Assisted Living recipient more personal funding than $30.00 to maintain life insurance payments


• Involve children in discussions & advocacy. Our young children were wiser then me as I navigated for a wounded warrior (Utah)


• 24 hour support phone line which will provide support and information with immediate response to caregivers


• A stipend for home grocery delivery for caregivers who are truly homebound


• Teach caregivers how powerful sharing their stories can be as an intregal form of advocacy to change policy to support them

We'd love to add your ideas to our list! Please share any solutions you'd like us to share with the Lt. Governor in our comments section, below.