Family Care Funding Proposal:

A Private Sector Comprehensive Solution

The Problem

The vast majority of America's growing elder population continues to live outside of the institutional environments of the long-term care industry. In fact, nearly twenty four million senior citizens require the services of daily assistance with basic living needs. Over time, as the continuum of needs increases with growing complexities, the friends and relatives entrusted to the care of elders are presented with ever-new challenges. Resources to meet the burdensome and unique circumstances of need become overwhelming often to the point of straining the threshold of the family caregiver's level of tolerances. Aging citizens suffer the consequences in resultant family caregiver frustrations impacted by the steady decline in coping skills, financial resources and patience. Compounding these problems are the changing social circumstances driven by the youth focus and high energy necessary to the needs of a two wage earning population.

Consequences

This fact has made the free-time necessary for the care of aging relatives an elusive, inaccessible and precious commodity. The accompanying effect on America's aging citizens has been for their worth to be devalued, often to the point where care is delegated in absentia to the least capable members of the family, even the teenaged children. This sets the stage for another scenario of neglect and potential abuse, where defenseless aging citizens are subjected to the indignities common to circumstances of limited information, skills and a failed social attitude fostered by changing priorities favoring youth.

These circumstances have led to a society desensitized to the social, physical and emotional needs of its aging citizens. As aging progressively increases the burdens of need, the family caregiver who becomes chained to the monotonous certainty of obligations without understanding, knowledge or skills begins to practice behaviors characterized by increasing joylessness and restrained anger. Such actions may not only be dangerous but, through exacerbation of conditions not favoring the best psychological needs of aging people, may even accelerate their decline.

What should we do?

This is not a happy situation for our aging friends and relatives. Misunderstanding and resultant chronic insensitivity, given rise by errors in judgment, fosters an emotional climate certainly not conducive to the needs of aging in place, happiness or longevity. In fact, countless research experiences have shown that circumstances of an unhappy environment raise stress levels and even the onset of death. Change needs to begin by creating an emotional climate that brings about a meaningful sensitivity to the needs of aging relatives and friends. Hopelessness driven by frustration needs to become hope driven by purposeful behavior. And the sensitivity that drives hope will not change until a transformation occurs in attitude. Attitude, which is the emotional climate of actions, develops out of understanding, information and skills. And, only when we begin to understand and, more importantly, develop a meaningful appreciation for the needs of our elders, will actions driven by a purposeful sensitivity and meaningful consequences replace hopelessness with hope, resulting in a new circumstance of happiness. This will only happen through preparation and planning.

Strategy for change

Three critical areas of behavior require change: (1) knowledge, (2) skill sets and (3) attitude. A range of resources is required to provide focus on the unique circumstances of need, but with sufficient flexibility to support expanding problems and complexities. The delivery system must be designed to be scalable to meet the growing and broad need and easy to use.

For the past 3 years, Senior Care Resource (SCR), a Baltimore based company serving the needs of America's family caregivers, has successfully designed the structure to bring together leading institutions of higher education along with other resources to focus jointly their knowledge base, skills, and experience to solve the critical issues facing senior caregivers. In preparing for a truly unique and collaborative effort to bring significant relief to Americas senior citizens, proprietary methods have been developed that will ensure both the success and efficiency of the mission. By applying proven research and design techniques to the needs for assessment, intervention, training, behavior management, and technology, a new resource will be delivered for the home care giving environment.

The needs of aging individuals present complex challenges. Effective solutions must provide the flexibility of diversity. To ensure quality results, solutions must evolve from the efforts of a diverse team with a comprehensive talents and diverse viewpoints. Content developers, solution strategists, and delivery designers will create solutions through collaborative efforts.

Details

Family caregivers face a wide range and diversity of individual challenges and problems. The family caregiver is confronted with targeted and unique sets of challenges that require a focused menu of comprehensive knowledge and skills. As outlined below, the steps of development, training and support are the same.

1. Knowledge and skills that support aging in place
2. Attitude, respect and sensitivity that form the foundation of quality elder care
3. Social behaviors (purposeful interaction) that creates sensitivity to people challenged by aging needs
4. Strategic observation that creates the circumstance of pro-active and anticipatory elder care-giving behavior.

Delivery System - Family Web Site

A web-based delivery system will provide three major utilities: (1) distance learning, (2) a communication network that links critical resources to needs and (3) interactive responses to the specific needs of the individual. Scientific methods in the psychology of instructional design will ensure that the delivery system will be effective, scalable, user friendly, efficient, and a desirable destination.

Critical arenas of behavioral functioning, risk, support considerations, and predictors appear in the outline below. The scrutiny of a collaborative team will assess the value and relevance of each critical area to arrive at a final determination of the contents for a training curriculum.

The family elder care web site is considered to be two things: (1) the absolute essential understandings and skills necessary to provide sound, basic, and quality support to the life of an aging human; (2) knowledge and skills necessary to make a meaningful reduction in the levels of risk. The family web is aimed at influencing the entire range of care and support behaviors within a context of an attitude and sensitivity that values aging people and their unique needs. Initial focus of the content sets will support needs on a prioritized basis. Final definition of the domain and extent of the "Family Web" will be determined by a reasoned and structured process of discovery. Guidance for the understanding and definition of what constitutes the substance of the content will flow from three sources: (1) data returned from the field observations of aging people, (2) existing knowledge, (3) the collaborative reasoning of a group with diverse and comprehensive skills.

Delivered Services

Product development services to be actualized by Senior Care Resource (SCR), Inc. by a non-for profit entity.

SCRF will supply the following services:

1. Knowledge Base: Aging knowledge and skill sets (detailed in outline below)
   a. Caregiver Attitude and behavior training
   b. Understanding, identifying and managing risks
   c. Facilitation of aging in place
   d. Financial Planning and Resources
   e. Long-Term Care Retirement Strategies
   f. Self-Reliance and Self-Determination
   g. Health and physical
   h. Facilitation of aging in place
2. Tangential Support: Market place and other Aging Support Resources (detailed in outline below)
   a. Finances
   b. Legal
   c. Psychiatric - (Skills that sustain quality of life)
3. Technology Services
   a. Web site development and maintenance
   b. Hosting
   c. Electronic Communication Servers
   d. Handheld field observation and behavior management devices - (Proprietary Patent)
4. Content Design: Learning Science
   a. Instructional Design Processes
   b. Family incentive building strategies
5. Continued consulting, updates and maintenance