Supporting Caregiving Families:
A Guide for Service

This is the book providing the philosophies and implementation of our caregivers support society

The Cowichan Family Caregivers Support Society was recently awarded a grant of $116,000 over three years from the Population Health Fund National - a branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada. The society is one of a total of 26 grant recipients across the country and one of only 11 groups in the field of seniors' care. The grant will allow the society to take our philosophy and model to other small urban, First Nations and rural communities through a book to be written over the next three years. In a press interview, Society Co-ordinator Ranjana Basu said "We know that some of what we are doing is quite unique and we think that brings with it a responsibility to share the information . . . Our goal is to put together material outlining our level of service, touching on the many things we have learned through the years". The Vancouver Foundation and Vancouver Island Health Authority, Aboriginal Health are also co-funding the project.

To put the book together, Ranjana will be conducting interviews with our staff, caregivers who have received and benefited from our service, health care staff, and others in the community with whom we work. The purpose is to capture the essence of what it is about our service that is helpful; what made it work for them? In this way caregivers and other interview participants will be co-creators of the knowledge that will be in the guide for service.

Project objectives are:

• To create resource material - a service guide - that will empower rural and urban communities to develop services to support their seniors and their caregivers.
• To create resource material that will help First Nations communities to develop services to support their elders and their caregivers.
• To disseminate information across Canada about a workable, economical and easily adaptable model of support to family caregivers and the seniors for whom they care.
• This model operates on population health principles of participation and collaboration.
• To foster collaboration between different regions and sectors through the work of an active Resource Committee; and between all project participants.
• To begin to establish relationships with communities across Canada that wish to adapt and implement our model so that we may be of support.

This project will provide information about a successful community-based service model that applies the population health approach to support seniors and their caregivers. We are drawing on people of different regions and sectors to create, disseminate and evaluate this service guide. This will be done through a Resource Committee which will be an active guiding and working group. It will monitor the progress of the project; members will read and give feedback to three drafts of the handbook; plan, implement and monitor evaluation of process and outcomes through the work of an evaluation sub-committee; and plan and implement a marketing/dissemination strategy through the work of a marketing sub-committee.

The Resource Committee has a variety of sectors represented including health, community, non-profit, volunteer, business, and academic. Participants on the committee include: Seniors and caregivers from different provinces; BC Health Promotion Coalition; Tsewultun Health Centre (Cowichan Tribes); Community Health Consultants (First Nations in BC); Vancouver Island Health Authority; Care Watch Toronto(Ontario); and Family Caregivers Association of Nova Scotia.

Family caregivers and seniors will be involved in providing the basis for some of the content of the service guide; as members of the Resource Committee; and as target groups in the marketing of the handbook.

Resource Committee

Vickie Cammack
Doreen Peter
Ethel Meade
Carolyn Singer
Wendy MacPhee-Ebbs
Heather Payne
Sharon Reashore (chair)
Carmen Gendron
Lois Cosgrave
Garth Harvey

Design

The design and layout for the book was done by David and Diana Pink of Pink Creative Concepts (phone:250-733-2635, email: warmland@shaw.ca).

Contributions

Our thanks to JP Atherton who designed and donated this flyer.