“The nation’s caregiving workforce is fraying.
Paid providers are overworked and undervalued, often forced to take on multiple jobs or turn to public assistance just to scrape by.
Many family caregivers are struggling as well, sacrificing their own health and well-being to tend to loved ones for years on end.
Consistent, skilled, affordable care is in short supply – and getting shorter – and those who provide it are shouldering an increasingly unsustainable burden.”
From the New York Times, August 2021
Lynn’s Legacy: Caring for the Caregiver is a program designed to educate and support caregivers, and to provide them with tools to promote resilience and help alleviate the buildup of physical, emotional and mental stress, which can lead to poor health and caregiver burnout. Our program will directly benefit unpaid family caregivers who provide care to a family member or friend.
A 2020 report by AARP estimates that nearly 42 million adults serve as family caregivers, more than one in five Americans. The stress these family caregivers are under increases their risk of suffering serious illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure, infections, and cancer. Family caregivers also suffer psychological strain leading to higher rates of depression and anxiety.
Our program will also directly benefit the family members or friends receiving care, who can be subject to neglect or abuse when their caregivers are depleted or burned out. Inadequate care for those in fragile health can result in a shorter lifespan. Lacking a resilient, healthy caregiver, these fragile individuals may end up spending their last days in a facility, when they would rather be at home.
Our program helps caregivers maintain their health and resilience by providing tested, effective resources, tools, education, training and support. We enable caregivers to develop a sensitivity and awareness of their own internal warning signs signaling the buildup of distress and depletion. We then provide caregivers with customized tools to help them alleviate the buildup of physical, emotional and mental stress.
Self-care for caregivers is essential. By nature, caregivers tend to set aside their own concerns to think first of their ailing loved one. Priorities for self-care, and a repertoire of activities to refresh and restore a caregiver’s well-being are vitally important. Self-care routines are needed to preserve physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of well-being.
Caring for the Caregiver goes beyond other programs by offering uniquely effective, experience-based self-care skills to relieve stress and promote resilience. Unlike any other program we’re aware of, we utilize a close-knit teamwork approach. We train caregivers in comprehensive, full-spectrum care management protocols.
We also share our conviction of the inspiring nature of compassionate caregiving, and the opportunity it can give for personal growth and fulfillment.
The Bernstein Institute is uniquely qualified to offer this program because our direct experiences of caregiving – the toll it can take physically, mentally, and emotionally on the individual – led to the creation of our program. We also have over 50 years of experience helping people like caregivers heal from trauma – the unrelieved buildup of pain, stress, physical and emotional strain, and suffering.
There is much to learn to be able to provide care for someone who is ill or disabled. Caregiving is an all-encompassing job requiring education, resources, and support.
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