Family Caregiver Alliance Executive Director, Kathleen Kelly Welcomes You to the Innovations Clearinghouse on Family Caregiving

Dear colleagues and friends of Family Caregiver Alliance:

It is my pleasure to welcome you to our Innovations Clearinghouse on Family Caregiving, a central resource where policymakers, professionals and family caregivers can find a diverse array of resources to help them develop caregiver-friendly legislation or initiatives, implement tried and tested caregiver support programs or services, and access information that can enhance the delivery of quality care.

At its conception, we envisioned this Clearinghouse as a national repository of promising ideas and solutions to improve family caregiver outcomes available to all professionals. While the focus has remained the same (i.e. family caregiving), the project in its unfolding presented us with a wealth of options, which we felt compelled and excited to explore. At its launching today, the Innovations Clearinghouse on Family Caregiving is a vibrant professional online community that offers one-stop shopping for innovations and practical tools as well as real time interaction with professionals, online networking and learning opportunities and so much more. We invite you to submit your programs and reports for inclusion in the Clearinghouse, join the online forum, or simply browse through the vast array of resources. My hope is that you will experiment with the various features it offers to you and visit often.

As this professional community knows, during the last year and while this project was developing, California and the nation were amidst some seriously troubled economic times. As a result, FCA, caregiver advocates and many of our partners in the field of Aging were forced to examine our goals, aspirations and priorities very closely. In the process, we learned to be more creative in strategically pushing for the advancement of the caregiver agenda. In the end, we were able to keep true to our missions and continue to offer meaningful programs to the communities we serve. In this environment, I am proud to say that the Innovations Clearinghouse emerged as a testament to FCA's commitment to excellence, innovation and service efficacy.

In other exciting developments, it was recently announced by the Administration on Aging, that FCA in partnership with ARCH Lifespan Respite has received federal funding to provide technical assistance in caregiver support and lifespan respite program development to the Aging and Lifespan Respite networks. This Clearinghouse will play a central role in the accomplishing that goal and will continue to develop to include a technical assistance piece accommodating the needs of the Aging and the Lifespan Respite networks.

In closing, I would be remiss if I did not mention that this project has materialized through the work of many creative minds and of course became possible only by the generous contributions of our partners, which include The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, William Randolph Hearst Foundation, The Retirement Research Foundation and the Administration on Aging.

To you, our partners, and the Aging network, I want to say once again Welcome! and that I'm looking forward to "seeing" you often on this online community!