E-mail to a Friend

  Printable Version

SAN FRANCISCO--5/8/01--The Archstone Foundation has awarded a three-year grant to Family Caregiver Alliance to establish the National Center on CaregivingSM. The Center will focus on public and private programs to improve the lives of the millions of caregiving families in this country.

The Center will expand FCA's abilities to offer information and technical assistance to policy makers, aging and long-term care organizations, the media and family caregivers. The scheduled launch date is July 2001.

The program has four objectives:

• To develop and disseminate information about best practices at the state and national levels;

• To provide consultation and assistance to policy makers, business/foundation leaders and program developers on innovative caregiver support programs;

• To deliver high quality consumer information to caregivers; and

• To provide quality information for media seeking to cover caregiver issues.

In its dual role as model program and national advocate, Family Caregiver Alliance is in a unique position to meet these objectives. FCA has nearly 25 years of experience providing direct services to caregivers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the model for the 10 other Caregiver Resource Centers throughout California. The CRC system is, in turn, a model for the National Family Caregiver Support Program established through the Older Americans Act.

FCA's formidable portfolio of national conferences, surveys, applied research, and program development and replication will provide a solid basis for the new Center; an upcoming FCA fall policy conference funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will engage state policy makers on critical issues of long-term care.

The National Center on Caregiving will undertake the following major activities:

• Develop a National Advisory Committee of experts in the field;

• Create and distribute best practice information in print and electronic formats;

• Prepare and disseminate policy briefs on issues related to family caregiving (print and electronic formats);

• Provide customized assistance for program developers, policy-makers and others;

• Respond to telephone, mail and e-mail inquiries from family caregivers across the country;

• Provide expert spokespersons, statistics and background information for the media;

• Upgrade the FCA website, at www.caregiver.org, which will be redesigned to feature new services and materials from the National Center on Caregiving.

"In the U.S.," says FCA Executive Director Kathleen Kelly, "long-term care services are fragmented. Whether or not you have access to services depends to a great extent on where you live. We have a rather lofty goal for the new National Center on Caregiving: we want no less than high quality, cost-effective, practical support programs available to caregivers in every state in the country. We are very grateful to the Archstone foundation for supporting our efforts in this regard."

The Archstone Foundation is a private grantmaking organization whose mission is to contribute toward the preparation of society in meeting the needs of an aging population. Their resources are used to help all generations plan for the aging process and support programs addressing the needs of the elderly in three areas: healthy aging and independence; quality of life within institutional settings; and issues at the end of life.

Founded in 1977, Family Caregiver Alliance is a nationally recognized information center on long-term care and the lead agency in California's system of statewide Caregiver Resource Centers. Services include information, publications, educational programs, care planning consultations, respite assistance, research and program development.

NOTE: Reporters wishing to subscribe to Caregiving PolicyDigest, FCA's free e-newsletter on long-term care public policy, may do so by sending name, organization and e-mail address to PolicyDigest_info@caregiver.org

  E-mail to a Friend

  Printable Version