Free Caregiver Training Provided by AC Care Alliance (ACCA) through CalGrows!
At some point in your life, you will likely need or will become a caregiver during a difficult time. Whether it’s a short-term recovery from an illness or surgery or a new diagnosis that may bring long term impacts, a caregiver provides much needed support with the activities of daily living.
Caregivers may support their care recipient with a variety of tasks including, but certainly not limited to, preparing food, doing household chores, completing complex medical tasks, keeping track of appointments and medications, handling bill payments and taxes, providing friendship and socialization, and so much more! The tasks are often done in love and care, but also bring an additional mental load of providing care for another individual. Many caregivers are constantly learning “on the job,” without a lot of prior knowledge of their care recipients’ condition or how to complete these tasks.
According to CalGrows, a program of the California Department of Aging, “across California nearly five million unpaid family or friend caregivers help their parents, spouses, relatives, and friends needing assistance with everyday tasks to live well in their homes and communities (source).” They also recognize that, in particular, women and “Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islander people are providing a disproportionately large share of both paid and unpaid care” and many are “twice as likely as other Californians to live in low-income households.”
AC Care Alliance has long recognized the important role that caregivers play in the lives of individuals with chronic, serious, and advanced illnesses, especially those coming from the communities of color that ACCA serves. Since the program’s inception, ACCA has offered the care navigation services of the Advanced Illness Care Program (AICP) ™ to not only persons needing care, but their caregivers as well. Care Navigators work with caregivers to create a personalized AICP program focusing on their own health, spiritual, advance care planning, social, and caregiving needs, as well as those of their care recipient. Tools are provided like the Caregiving Workbook which helps caregivers organize their care recipient’s needs, build their support network, and plan potentially tough conversations to advocate for support and help, and includes tools to support their mental health on hard days.
Now, in addition to providing the AICP to caregivers enrolled with AC Care Alliance, ACCA will be expanding training to paid and unpaid Caregivers across California through the CalGrows Grant! CalGrows is partnering with organizations across the state to provide valuable training to caregivers on the physical and emotional aspects of the work, the complexity of populations served, and workplace readiness and professional growth.
ACCA will be providing a free public training on the Workbook for Caregivers on August 22.
ACCA has also partnered with Cypress Resilience Project (another program of Public Health Institute) to offer five virtual courses that will support caregivers’ mental health. Classes will provide training on recognizing and avoiding burnout, understanding secondary trauma, supporting someone who is grieving, and developing self-care and rest strategies. In addition, a special Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) course will be offered helping individuals learn the common signs and symptoms of mental illness and substance use disorders and how to interact with a person in crisis and connect them to help. Those who complete the Mental Health First Aid course will earn a 3-year certification from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
If you are a paid or unpaid caregiver, register for your FREE trainings today!
For more information on the CalGrows program or to sign up for other courses, visit: www.calgrows.org
Photo Credit: Kampus Production