September 19, 2002
Caring Circles help renew caregivers
By DARYL GADBOW of the Missoulian
Program will be important part of Missoula Aging Services
The 12 women and one man who gathered at a Missoula church Wednesday shared stories of their experiences caring for aging, chronically ill or disabled family members.
They are among the estimated 54 million family caregivers in America, a number that is growing as our population ages.
The group in Missoula spoke not only of the joy and rewards of helping a loved one in need, but also of the emotional stress, burnout and physical exhaustion that frequently accompany the task.
The group met at St. Paul's Lutheran Church to support and learn more about Caring Circles, a national organization of volunteers who provide respite, comfort and assistance to family caregivers.
In Missoula, Caring Circles is sponsored by Life's End Institute (formerly the Missoula Demonstration Project) and Missoula Aging Services. The program has been functioning on a fairly small scale locally since January 2001, according to Barbara Spring of Life's End Institute, who organized Wednesday's meeting as a step in expanding Caring Circles in the community.
So far, Spring's efforts have been concentrated in Missoula's churches. Now, she said, she's trying to reach out to other organizations and agencies.
The concept of care circles involves a team of volunteers that shares the responsibility of helping a primary family caregiver.
"We work together as a team, as a circle, so we end up refreshed and enriched instead of getting burned out and exhausted ourselves," Spring said. "There's no way I'm going to call six people to take care of mom while I go to the movies. The care circle allows the caregiver to make one call to get help."
The program stays away from handling intense medical and financial concerns of a family, she added. But the list of kinds of assistance Caring Circles does provide is extensive, including business needs, shopping, meal preparation, handyman duties, housecleaning chores, pet and plant care, health care, reading, transportation, yard work, and maybe most important, just giving the caregiver a break.
Caring Circles will be an important component of the responsibilities of Missoula Aging Services under the federal Older Americans Act and the recent addition of the Family Caregiver Act, according to Bernie O'Connor, elder services manager for Missoula Aging Services.
"We'll be dependent on other area agencies and services," O'Connor said. "There's not a lot of funding available. What we'll do is try to define what resources exist to support family members as caregivers. And if they don't exist, we'll try to develop them. So you can see how important this (Caring Circles) is. I'm here to support Caring Circles as a vital resource."
Aging Services also has a library of other caregiver resources available in Missoula, including Web sites, books and other literature, support groups, newsletters, videos and respite training materials. In addition, the agency offers a case management program that includes in-home assessment of elders' needs.
Aging Services has compiled a calendar of family caregiver events and activities. Three important dates on that calendar are Oct. 9, when the program "And Thou Shalt Honor," a PBS television special on family caregivers will air on local public stations; Nov. 16, when a town forum on caregiving is scheduled in Missoula at a time and location to be announced; and April 9-10, 2003, when a care team leadership training conference will be held in Missoula, led by the national head of the Care Team Network in Birmingham, Ala.
Life's End Institute has a Faith in Action grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help fund its Caring Circles program. Other organizations participating in the program are the Missoula Friends Meeting (Quakers), First Presbyterian Church, Christ the King Church, Missoula Manor, St. Paul's Lutheran Church and the Missoula Area Parish Nurse Association.
The program is ready to provide help to caregivers now, Spring said. But she and other organizers are actively recruiting additional volunteers to meet a growing demand, she added.
Here are ways to get involved in the Caring Circles program, either as a volunteer, or as a caregiver in need of help:
Talk to your church leadership.
Appoint a volunteer coordinator for your faith community.
Call the family caregiver support specialist at Missoula Aging Services, at 728-7682.
Contact the Life's End Institute at 728-1613, Ext. 202.
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